Unit 5 Lecture Flashcards
What are the two types of cells?
- Nerve Cells (Neurons)
- Involved in the generation and interpretation of ‘Electrical Signals’
- Glial Cells (Neuroglia)
- Support neuronal cell activity
What do the dendrites, cell body, axon, and synapses do?
- Dendrites
- Collect information
- Cell Body
- Process Information
- Axon
- Propagate info
- Synapses
- Transmit info
What are the two components of bioelectricity
Resting Membrane Potential
Action Potential
What is the resting membrane potential and what are the 2 parameters that it depends on?
- Baseline electrical conditions (of ALL cells)
- Depends on 2 parameters
- Transmembrane ion gradients (particularly Na+ and K+)
- Membrane permeability to those ions
What do ion concentrations look like for a resting membrane potential in a muscle cell interior
How is the resting membrane potential maintained?
- Ion gradients!!!
- 3 sodium is pumped out of the cell and 2 potassium are pumped into the cell
- K+ leak channels present in all cells
- Na, K-ATPase develops and maintains steady-state ion gradients for ALL cells
- Notice the inside it negitive outside is positive
- 3 sodium is pumped out of the cell and 2 potassium are pumped into the cell
- Permeability
- K has leak channels (highly permeable)
- Not very permeable to sodium
What are three key points about the resting membrane potential and the intracellular (cytoplasm) vs extracellular areas
- Pumping creates ionic gradient for K+
- K+ “leaks” out, down its concentration gradient, so that the inside of the cells becomes more negative
- Now two kinds of forces push/pull on K+ (chemical and electrical)
What are the 2 opposing forces regarding resting membrane potential?
- Chemical and electrical
- Chemical forces (K+ gradient)
- Tends to push K+ out
- Developed Electrical Force (inside negative)
- Tends to pull K+ in
- Chemical forces (K+ gradient)
What is in a typical cell (includinh neuronal cells)
- Chemical and electrical forces for K+ are nearly in balance
- What does that mean to us?
- Outwardly-directed K+ gradient results in an inside-negative electrical potential
What is the typical electrical potential difference?
Typical value -0.05 volts to -0.1 volts
What is a characteristic of all cells at rest?
K+ dominated inside-negative membrane potential. K+ dominates because it has so many leak channels in the membranes
What does the distribution of ions during a resting membrane potential lookl ike?
What does the distribution of charges look like regarding resting membrane potential?
What can changes in ‘Membrane permeability’ do?
Can produce large changes in the ‘membrane potential’
Membrane permeability to an ion (K+ or Na+) = open channels for that ion
What are keys to manipulation of membrane potential
- Maintain (stable) Na+ and K+ gradients (Na/K ATPase)
- Vary the activity of specific ion channels
How are membrane permeabilities manipulated?
- Ion channels
- Integral membrane proteins
- Channels can be “open” or “closed”
- Some channels are routinely open
- e.g. K-leak channel is the basis of the inside-negative resting membrane potential
- Some channels have their open states regulated
Discuss how some channels have their open states regulated
- Chemically (ligand)-gated channels open when a signal molecule binds to the channel protein (ACh)
- Mechanically-gated channels open when membrane gets stretched
- Voltage-gated channels open when the membrane potential gets less negative ‘depolarized’
What does it mean that neurons are ‘excitable cells’
In Nerve and muscles, can change membrane potential to generate an electrical signal
What is the principal mechanism for a neuronal action potential
Voltage-gated Na+ Channel
What is the first step of the chain of events in the generation of the action potential?
- Local change in membrane potential
- Such local changes can be hyperpolarizing (more negative) or depolarizing (less negative)
- (‘graded’ potentials)
What does an action potential begin with
A local depolarization
Discuss what graded potentials are
- Occur in dendrites and cell body of neuron
- Size varies with strength of stimulus
- Usually generated by chemically and mechanically gated channels
What are the two types of graded potentials?
- Inhibitory Post-Synaptic Potential (IPSP)
- Excitatory Post-Synaptic Potential (EPSP)
What is the second step of the chain of events in the generation of the action potential?
Depolarization to a threshold value induces a population of voltage-gated Na-channels within the local region of membrane to open….
What is the third step of the chain of events in the generation of the action potential?
Critical point: shortly after Na-Channels open, -> They spontaneously close ‘inactivation’
What is the fourth step of the chain of events in the generation of the action potential?
Depolarization also opens (more slowly) a second population of channels: Voltage-gated K channels
-Inactivation of the voltage-gated Na-Channels, combined with activity of the voltage gated K-channels results in ‘repolarization’ of membrane potential back toward the resting value
Look at the graded channels and the chart comparison
What is a refractory period?
Periods during which it is difficult or impossible to generate a second AP
What is an absolute refractory period vs a relative refractory period
- Absolute Refractory Period: Immediately following inactivation of Na-channels, membrane cannot be restimulated to produce AP
- Involves resetting of Na-channels
- Relative Refractory Period: A period during which a new AP can be produced, but it takes a larger than normal stimulation
- Involves resetting of K-channels
What is the importance of refractrory periods?
- Establish maxiumum rate of action potentials
- Influence the characteristics of AP propagation - forward propagation from axon hillock to axon terminal
What is the first step in the propagation of the Action potential?
- Entry of Na+ produces a ‘local current’
- Spreads laterally to depolarize adjacent areas of membrane
- If the adjacent membrane area is depolarized to ‘threshold’ it starts a new cycle of action potential in this new region of membrane
What is the second step in the propagation of the action potential?
- Entry of Na+ in the new region of membrane produces a local current that spreas to adjacent areas…
- If the ‘new’ adjacent membrane area is depolarized to ‘threshold’ it starts a new cycle of action potential in this ‘new’ new region of membrane
What are two factors that affect velocity of propagation?
- Size (diameter of axon)
- ‘Myelination’
Discuss size as a factor that affects velocity of propagation
Size: Bigger is Faster
Resistance to current flow in ‘axoplasm’ decreases as diameter increases
Discuss myelination as a factor that affects velocity of propagation
Certain glial cells (oligodendrocytes CNS and Schwann cells PNS) form insulating layer (‘sheath’) around axons
Discuss saltatory conduction:
- Jumping conduction
- When sodium comes into one channel is opens channels at next node and the previous nodes become refractory
Look at continuous conduction versus saltatory conduction in an axon
Explain demyelination
How is an electrical signal (Action Potential) transmitted from one excitable cell to another?
Synaptic Transmission
-Same general events that occur during neuromuscular transmission