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The chemistry/physics of saltatory nerve conduction
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[QUOTE="BillTre, post: 6189459, member: 581757"] Another aspect is that the propagation of the action potential is the change in the electric potential across the neuron's membrane. The voltage change is what causes ion conducting channel proteins at the next node to open. Like [USER=124113]@Ygggdrasil[/USER] said there is little change detectable change in the extra-cellular ion concentrations (when doing electrophysiology, the extracellular fluids are usually treated as a ground (electrically speaking)). There is only one special case that I know of where the electrical effects of extracellular ions influence action potentials, the cytologically (cytology = study of cellular structure) unique structure of the axon cap of the [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauthner_cell']Mauthner cell[/URL] (a big unique neuron in [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamniotes']anamniote[/URL] vertebrates) that is important to their escape response (a rapid turnng away from any of a number of sudden and potentially dangerous stimuli). The axon cap forms an inhibitory electrically based "synapse" at the axon hillock (where action potentials are initiated). This results in the very rapid inhibition of one of the two Mauthner cells if the other one on the opposite side of the brain. This allows the turning escape response to proceed without interference from the other Mauthner cell simultaneously triggering tuning in the opposite direction. The relevance here is that the axon cap is forms a small sealed off area around the axon hillock where ion concentrations [B]are[/B] changed extracellularly and can affect another neuron's function. Go to the axon cap section and the following 3 or 4 sections of [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauthner_cell#Axon_cap']this wikipedia article[/URL] to read about this. There is also a circuit diagram in the link of what's going on in the cytological regions. The cytological structure of the axon cap is unique and not found in other cases (it would be pretty obvious). This is a very obscure thing (since it seems to be a one off in all of neurobiology). I only know about it since it is found right in the middle of the anatomy that was involved in my thesis project. [/QUOTE]
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The chemistry/physics of saltatory nerve conduction
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