Throughout this residency I have been looking at neuronal pathways and message transmission through our bodies. Designated synaptic clefts allow these transmissions to pass from one dendrite to the next and this is known as the action potential process – I have posted a number of images and descriptions of this process, according to my understanding of it. However, unsurprisingly, I now find there is more to these complex neurological interactions – also involved are electronic components known as ion channels:
From 1939 to 1952, Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley published a series of seminal papers that successfully described how the flux of ions across membranes is responsible for the generation of the action potential: an action potential is the transient, rapid rise and fall of the membrane voltage ( Rasband, M. N. (2010) Ion Channels and Excitable Cells. Nature Education 3(9):41)
2006 Nature Publishing Group Zagotta, W. N. Membrane biology: Permutations of permeability. Nature 440, 427-429 (2006).
Continue reading The Next Layer of Complexity: Ion Channel Receptors
