Difference Between Muscular Tissue and Nervous Tissue

The key difference between muscular tissue and nervous tissue is that the muscular tissue is a tissue specialized for contraction, while the nervous tissue is a tissue specialized for communication.

Epithelial tissue, muscle tissue, nervous tissue, and connective tissue are four types of tissues present in the animal body. Muscle tissue is responsible for the locomotion and movements of body parts while nervous tissue is responsible for receiving signals and communication. There are three types of muscular tissue: skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle and smooth muscle. In contrast, nervous tissue has two types as the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. Moreover, muscle fibres are the structural units of the muscle tissue while nerves and glial cells are the two major cell types of the nervous tissue.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Muscular Tissue 
3. What is Nervous Tissue
4. Similarities Between Muscular Tissue and Nervous Tissue
5. Side by Side Comparison – Muscular Tissue vs Nervous Tissue in Tabular Form
6. Summary

What is Muscular Tissue?

Muscle tissue is one of the four main types of animal tissues specialized for contraction. Muscle tissue facilitates locomotion, movements of body parts, heat generation and organ protection. The basic unit of muscle tissue is muscle fibre. Moreover, there are three main types of muscle tissues as smooth muscle, skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle. Each type of muscle contains unique, structural unit cells with specialized properties.

Skeletal muscle is the most abundant and common muscle composed of multinucleated skeletal muscle cells. It is a striated muscle which works under voluntary control. Skeletal muscle attach with the skeleton via tendons. Cardiac muscle is the muscle present in the heart walls. It is also a striated muscle, but it works involuntarily. Moreover, smooth muscle is the third type of muscle present in regions such as organs, blood vessels, bronchioles of the respiratory tract, etc. and composed of smooth muscle cells. Smooth muscle is not a striated muscle. Similar to cardiac muscle, it works involuntarily.

What is Nervous Tissue?

Nervous tissue is the tissue specialized for receiving signals and transmitting messages throughout the body. Nerve cells are the cells that make the nervous tissue. It consists of glial cells as well. Nervous tissue has a brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. Furthermore, nerve tissue responds to different stimuli and acts according to them. Nerve cells control different activities of the body. Besides, the nerve cells or neurons involved in the transmission of signals throughout the body in the form of coordination. According to the type of message, nerve cells could be classified into different types. These include sensory nerve cells, motor nerve cells and associated nerve cells. Moreover, sensory nerve cells are the type of nerve cells that involve in the transmission of nerve impulses generated by different stimuli to the central nervous system.

Motor nerve cells transmit information from the central nervous system directly to the organ to cause a change in the functioning of the organs. Associated or intermediate nerve cells help in the communication between sensory and motor nerve cells. Moreover, nerve cells provide a platform for responding towards a particular stimulus and involve in the transmission of stimuli to the central nervous system, different organs or to different nerve cells as well. The shape and size of nerve cells differ. All neurons consist of a set of similar cell parts even though they differ in size. Furthermore, these include cell body, dendrites, axon and presynaptic terminal.

What are the Similarities Between Muscular Tissue and Nervous Tissue?

• Muscular tissue and nervous tissue are two types of animal tissues.
• They are made up of cells.
• Moreover, both are present all over the body.

What is the Difference Between Muscular Tissue and Nervous Tissue?

Muscular tissue is an animal tissue specialized for contraction while nervous tissue is an animal tissue specialized for communication. So, this is the key difference between muscular tissue and nervous tissue. Moreover, muscle fibres are the basic structural units of the muscular tissue while neurons are the basic structural and functional units of the nervous tissue.

Furthermore, muscular tissue constitutes of smooth muscle, cardiac muscle and skeletal muscle while nervous tissue constitutes of the brain, spinal code and peripheral nerves. Hence, this is a further difference between muscular tissue and nervous tissue.

Summary – Muscular Tissue vs Nervous Tissue

Muscular tissue and nervous tissue are two of the four types of animal tissues. Muscles fibres make the muscular tissue while neurons and glial cells make the nervous tissue. Smooth muscle, skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle are the three parts of muscle tissue while the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves are the major parts of the nervous tissue. Muscle tissue is specialized for contraction while nervous tissue is specialized for communication. So, this summarizes the difference between muscular tissue and nervous tissue.

Reference:

1. “33.2D: Muscle Tissues and Nervous Tissues.” Biology LibreTexts, Libretexts, 9 Sept. 2019, Available here.
2. “Nervous Tissue – Definition, Function and Types.” Biology Dictionary, 29 Apr. 2017, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. “414 Skeletal Smooth Cardiac” By OpenStax College – Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Web site, Jun 19, 2013 (CC BY 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia
1. “Peripheral nerve, cross section” (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia