What causes myasthenia gravis?
The condition develops when auto-antibodies attack normal skeletal muscle tissue. Nerve endings that innervate skeletal muscle typically release a chemical, acetylcholine, to induce the muscles to contract. In myasthenia, antibodies attach themselves to the receptors for the acetylcholine on the skeletal muscle. Thus, when the acetylcholine is released from a nerve and tries to induce contraction in a muscle, the receptors cannot attach to the acetylcholine since they are bound with an abnormal antibody.
