This insight is of major importance for doping rules and public health advice. For example muscle weakness is a major problem in the elderly, and our data indicate that early training intervention might give lifelong benefits. The finding also has major implications for doping rules and for this reason was mentioned among the top 25 news in all of science in 2013 by ScienceNews.
So far we have only investigated muscle memory in mice. The aim of the master thesis is to investigate muscle memory humans. In collaboration with professor Truls Raastad at the Norwegian Sport University one arm of individuals will be subjected to strength exercise and the other will remain untrained. After a period in which none of the arms are exercised, both arms will be trained and we will investigate if the previously exercised arm gain strength and mass quicker, which would represent a muscle memory. Muscle biopsies will be taken throughout the experiment.
The master student will be involved mainly in the microscopical and cell biological analysis of the biopsies (single cell analysis with confocal microscopy).
Depending on the interest of the master student he/she can also make molecular analyses with respect to epigenetic genome markers which is currently also a main focus in the lab. See for example the other master thesis from the Kristian Gundersen lab with Kent-Arne Hansson and Mads Bengtsen as co-supervisors.
Muscle memory is further described in this review: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/2/235.long