Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley was a Nobel Prize-winning English physiologist and biophysicist. He was born into the prominent Huxley family. After graduating from Westminster School in Central London, from where he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined Alan Lloyd Hodgkin to study nerve impulses. Their eventual discovery of the basis for propagation of nerve impulses earned them the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963. They made their discovery from the giant axon of the Atlantic squid. Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, Huxley was recruited by the British Anti-Aircraft Command and later transferred to the Admiralty. After the war he resumed research at The University of Cambridge, where he developed interference microscopy that would be suitable for studying muscle fibres.
Refractoriness is the fundamental property of any object of autowave nature not to respond on stimuli, if the object stays in the specific refractory state. In common sense, refractory period is the characteristic recovery time, a period of time that is associated with the motion of the image point on the left branch of the isocline
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Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin was an English physiologist and biophysicist, who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Huxley and John Eccles.
An inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP) is a kind of synaptic potential that makes a postsynaptic neuron less likely to generate an action potential. The opposite of an inhibitory postsynaptic potential is an excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP), which is a synaptic potential that makes a postsynaptic neuron more likely to generate an action potential. IPSPs can take place at all chemical synapses, which use the secretion of neurotransmitters to create cell to cell signalling. Inhibitory presynaptic neurons release neurotransmitters that then bind to the postsynaptic receptors; this induces a change in the permeability of the postsynaptic neuronal membrane to particular ions. An electric current that changes the postsynaptic membrane potential to create a more negative postsynaptic potential is generated, i.e. the postsynaptic membrane potential becomes more negative than the resting membrane potential, and this is called hyperpolarisation. To generate an action potential, the postsynaptic membrane must depolarize—the membrane potential must become more positive than the resting membrane potential. Therefore, hyperpolarisation of the postsynaptic membrane makes it less likely for depolarisation to sufficiently occur to generate an action potential in the postsynaptic neurone.
Membrane potential is the difference in electric potential between the interior and the exterior of a biological cell. With respect to the exterior of the cell, typical values of membrane potential, normally given in millivolts, range from –40 mV to –80 mV.
In neuroscience, the threshold potential is the critical level to which a membrane potential must be depolarized to initiate an action potential. Threshold potentials are necessary to regulate and propagate signaling in both the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS).
The voltage clamp is an experimental method used by electrophysiologists to measure the ion currents through the membranes of excitable cells, such as neurons, while holding the membrane voltage at a set level. A basic voltage clamp will iteratively measure the membrane potential, and then change the membrane potential (voltage) to a desired value by adding the necessary current. This "clamps" the cell membrane at a desired constant voltage, allowing the voltage clamp to record what currents are delivered. Because the currents applied to the cell must be equal to the current going across the cell membrane at the set voltage, the recorded currents indicate how the cell reacts to changes in membrane potential. Cell membranes of excitable cells contain many different kinds of ion channels, some of which are voltage-gated. The voltage clamp allows the membrane voltage to be manipulated independently of the ionic currents, allowing the current-voltage relationships of membrane channels to be studied.
In physiology, electrotonus refers to the passive spread of charge inside a neuron. Passive means that voltage-dependent changes in membrane conductance do not contribute. Neurons and other excitable cells produce two types of electrical potential:
- Electrotonic potential — a non-propagated local potential, resulting from a local change in ionic conductance. When it spreads along a stretch of membrane, it becomes exponentially smaller (decrement).
- Action potential — a propagated impulse.
Postsynaptic potentials are changes in the membrane potential of the postsynaptic terminal of a chemical synapse. Postsynaptic potentials are graded potentials, and should not be confused with action potentials although their function is to initiate or inhibit action potentials. They are caused by the presynaptic neuron releasing neurotransmitters from the terminal bouton at the end of an axon into the synaptic cleft. The neurotransmitters bind to receptors on the postsynaptic terminal, which may be a neuron or a muscle cell in the case of a neuromuscular junction. These are collectively referred to as postsynaptic receptors, since they are on the membrane of the postsynaptic cell.
The soliton hypothesis in neuroscience is a model that claims to explain how action potentials are initiated and conducted along axons based on a thermodynamic theory of nerve pulse propagation. It proposes that the signals travel along the cell's membrane in the form of certain kinds of solitary sound pulses that can be modeled as solitons. The model is proposed as an alternative to the Hodgkin–Huxley model in which action potentials: voltage-gated ion channels in the membrane open and allow sodium ions to enter the cell. The resulting decrease in membrane potential opens nearby voltage-gated sodium channels, thus propagating the action potential. The transmembrane potential is restored by delayed opening of potassium channels. Soliton hypothesis proponents assert that energy is mainly conserved during propagation except dissipation losses; however, measured temperature changes are also consistent with the Hodgkin-Huxley model.
Low-threshold spikes (LTS) refer to membrane depolarizations by the T-type calcium channel. LTS occur at low, negative, membrane depolarizations. They often follow a membrane hyperpolarization, which can be the result of decreased excitability or increased inhibition. LTS result in the neuron reaching the threshold for an action potential. LTS is a large depolarization due to an increase in Ca2+ conductance, so LTS is mediated by calcium (Ca2+) conductance. The spike is typically crowned by a burst of two to seven action potentials, which is known as a low-threshold burst. LTS are voltage dependent and are inactivated if the cell's resting membrane potential is more depolarized than −60mV. LTS are deinactivated, or recover from inactivation, if the cell is hyperpolarized and can be activated by depolarizing inputs, such as excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSP).
In neurophysiology, several mathematical models of the action potential have been developed, which fall into two basic types. The first type seeks to model the experimental data quantitatively, i.e., to reproduce the measurements of current and voltage exactly. The renowned Hodgkin–Huxley model of the axon from the Loligo squid exemplifies such models. Although qualitatively correct, the H-H model does not describe every type of excitable membrane accurately, since it considers only two ions, each with only one type of voltage-sensitive channel. However, other ions such as calcium may be important and there is a great diversity of channels for all ions. As an example, the cardiac action potential illustrates how differently shaped action potentials can be generated on membranes with voltage-sensitive calcium channels and different types of sodium/potassium channels. The second type of mathematical model is a simplification of the first type; the goal is not to reproduce the experimental data, but to understand qualitatively the role of action potentials in neural circuits. For such a purpose, detailed physiological models may be unnecessarily complicated and may obscure the "forest for the trees". The Fitzhugh-Nagumo model is typical of this class, which is often studied for its entrainment behavior. Entrainment is commonly observed in nature, for example in the synchronized lighting of fireflies, which is coordinated by a burst of action potentials; entrainment can also be observed in individual neurons. Both types of models may be used to understand the behavior of small biological neural networks, such as the central pattern generators responsible for some automatic reflex actions. Such networks can generate a complex temporal pattern of action potentials that is used to coordinate muscular contractions, such as those involved in breathing or fast swimming to escape a predator.
Summation, which includes both spatial and temporal summation, is the process that determines whether or not an action potential will be generated by the combined effects of excitatory and inhibitory signals, both from multiple simultaneous inputs, and from repeated inputs. Depending on the sum total of many individual inputs, summation may or may not reach the threshold voltage to trigger an action potential.
Cellular neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience that concerned with the study of neurons at a cellular level. This includes morphology and physiological properties of single neurons. Several techniques such as intracellular recording, patch-clamp, and voltage-clamp technique, pharmacology, confocal imaging, molecular biology, two photon laser scanning microscopy and Ca2+ imaging have been used to study activity at the cellular level. Cellular neuroscience examines the various types of neurons, the functions of different neurons, the influence of neurons upon each other, and how neurons work together.
A depolarizing prepulse (DPP) is an electrical stimulus that causes the potential difference measured across a neuronal membrane to become more positive or less negative, and precedes another electrical stimulus. DPPs may be of either the voltage or current stimulus variety and have been used to inhibit neural activity, selectively excite neurons, and increase the pain threshold associated with electrocutaneous stimulation.
An action potential pulse is a mathematically and experimentally correct Synchronized Oscillating Lipid Pulse coupled with an Action Potential. This is a continuation of Hodgkin Huxley's work in 1952 with the inclusion of accurately modelling ion channel proteins, including their dynamics and speed of activation.
