Tendon

A tendon or tendon (Latin tendo, English: tendon ) is that part of the muscle connective tissue by which this bone is connected to a (→ origin and insertion ). An exception is the intermediate tendons that connect two or more muscle bellies of a muscle or the approach to a fascia. A band on the other hand connects bone to bone.

Tendons are made like all connective and supporting tissue of fixed cells and an intercellular substance in the mainly collagenous fibers (collagen type I and type III) are embedded and thus the tendons give her strength. They are surrounded by the " sclerotica " ( peritendineum ).

A chord is always running alongside each other and among themselves firmly cemented connective tissue fibers (→ collagenous connective tissue ), which are united into bundles. There are only a few nerves and blood vessels present in the tendons, which results in a poor regenerative capacity after themselves. Tendons are likely to contain a small proportion of mesenchymal stem cells.

There are two types of tendons: flat, thin, wide, more similar to the skin, which usually are found on flat muscles, called tendons or aponeuroses skins, as well as round, cord-like tendons. The strongest tendon in the human body is the Achilles tendon ( tendo calcaneus ). It is the starting point for the three-headed calf muscle ( triceps surae ) and holds a ton of tensile load. Tendons may be relatively short or very long, as in the long finger muscles. To save space on the target organ, the muscle bellies are located in the forearm, while the tendon itself - sometimes running into so-called tendon sheaths - start only at the end members of the finger bones.