Nerve as an excitable tissue

dr. Debby Mirani Lubis, M.Biomed, AIFO-K

 LO
• (1) Graded Potentials
• (2) Action potentials occur in all-or-none
fashion.
• (3) Contiguous and Saltatory conduction
• (4) The strength of a stimulus is coded by the
frequency of action potentials.
• (5) Fiber diameter also influences the velocity
of action potential propagation.
• Nerve and muscle are considered excitable tissues
• 🡪 because they produce electrical signals when
excited.
• Neurons use these electrical signals to receive,
process, initiate, and transmit messages.
• In muscle cells, these electrical signals initiate
contraction.
• Electrical signals are produced by changes in ion
movement across the plasma membrane
• The constant membrane potential present when a
cell is electrically at rest—that is, not producing
electrical signals—is referred to as the resting
membrane potential.
• neurons (nerve cells) and muscle cells, have
developed a specialized use for membrane
potential.
• They can undergo transient, rapid fluctuations in
their membrane potentials, which serve as
electrical signals.
 several terms
used to describe changes in potential:
1. Polarization. At resting potential, the membrane is
polarized at -70 mV in a typical neuron
2. Depolarization. The membrane becomes less
polarized;
the inside becomes less negative than at resting potential,
the potential moving closer to 0 mV (for example, a change
from -70 to -60 mV);
This term also refers to the inside even becoming positive
as it does during an action potential (a major type of
electrical signal) when the membrane potential reverses
itself (for example, becoming +30 mV).
3. Repolarization. The membrane returns to resting
potential after having been depolarized.
4. Hyperpolarization. The membrane becomes
more polarized;
🡪 the inside becomes more negative than at
resting potential,
🡪 the potential moving even farther from 0
mV (for instance, a change from -70 to -80 mV);
 Electrical signals are produced by changes in
ion movement across the plasma membrane
• Changes in ion movement are brought about
by changes in membrane permeability in
response to triggering events.
• A triggering event triggers a change in
membrane potential by altering membrane
permeability and consequently altering ion
flow across the membrane
• the water-soluble ions 🡪 carrying charges 🡪
cannot penetrate the plasma membrane’s lipid
bilayer
🡪 cross the membrane only through
channels specific for them or by carrier-
mediated transport.
• Membrane channels may be either leak
channels or gated channels
 Membrane Channels
• leak channels 🡪 open all the time, permit
unregulated leakage of their specific ion
across the membrane through the channels.
• Gated channels 🡪 can be open or closed 🡪
response to a triggering event that causes a
change in the conformation (shape) of the
protein that forms the gated channel.
 Four kinds of gated channels
(1) Voltage-gated channels open or close in
response to changes in membrane potential,
(2) Chemically gated channels change shape in
response to binding of a specific extracellular
chemical messenger to a surface membrane
receptor,
(3) mechanically gated channels respond to
stretching or other mechanical deformation, and
(4) Thermally gated channels respond to local
changes in temperature (heat or cold).
 Electrical Signals
• There are two basic forms of electrical signals:
• (1) graded potentials, which serve as
short-distance signals, and
• (2) action potentials, which signal over long
distances
 Graded potentials
• Graded potentials are local changes in
membrane potential that occur in varying
grades or degrees of magnitude or strength.
• For example, membrane potential could
change from -70 to -60 mV (a 10-mV graded
potential) or from -70 to -50 mV (a 20-mV
graded potential).
 Graded potential
• The stronger a triggering event, the larger the
resultant graded potential
• The longer the duration of the triggering
event, the longer the duration of the graded
potential
• Graded potentials spread by passive current
flow.
• Graded potentials die out over short distances
• local currents die out within micrometers (less
than 1 mm) as they move away from the initial
site of change in potential and consequently can
function as signals for only very short distances
• The following are all graded potentials:
postsynaptic potentials, receptor potentials,
end-plate potentials, pacemaker potentials, and
slowwave potentials
 Action potentials
• Action potentials are brief, rapid, large
(100-mV) changes in membrane potential
during which the potential actually reverses
• Action potentials are conducted, or
propagated, throughout the entire membrane
nondecrementally
• they do not diminish in strength as they travel
from their site of initiation throughout the
remainder of the cell membrane
 Action potentials
• Unlike the variable duration of a graded potential,
the duration of an action potential is always the
same in a given excitable cell.
• In a neuron, an action potential lasts for only 1
msec (0.001 second).
• Action potentials are propagated from the axon
hillock to the axon terminals
• Once an action potential is initiated at the axon
hillock, no further triggering event is necessary to
activate the remainder of the nerve fiber.
• The impulse is automatically conducted
throughout the neuron without further
stimulation by one of two methods of
propagation: contiguous conduction or
saltatory conduction
• Action potentials occur in all-or-none fashion
• all-or-none law
Contiguous
Conductio
n
 Saltatory Conduction
• Conduction in myelinated axons depends on a similar
pattern of circular current flow.
• However, myelin is an effective insulator, and current flow
through it is negligible.
• Instead, depolarization in myelinated axons jumps from one
node of Ranvier to the next, with the current sink at the
active node serving to electrotonically depolarize the node
ahead of the action potential to the firing level
• This jumping of depolarization from node to node is called
saltatory conduction.
• It is a rapid process that allows myelinated axons to conduct
up to 50 times faster than the fastest unmyelinated fibers.
Saltatory conduction
 the refractory period
• a new action potential cannot be initiated in a
region that has just undergone an action
potential.
• Because of the changing status of the
voltage-gated Na and K channels during and
after an action potential, the refractory period
has two components: the absolute refractory
period and the relative refractory period
 Absolute and relative
refractory periods
• During the absolute refractory
period, the portion of the
membrane that has just undergone
an action potential cannot be
restimulated.
• This period corresponds to the time
during which the Na gates are not
in their resting conformation.
• During the relative refractory
period, the membrane can be
restimulated only by a stronger
stimulus than is usually necessary.
• This period corresponds to the time
during which the K gates opened
during the action potential have not
yet closed, coupled with lingering
inactivation of the voltage-gated Na
channels.
Refractory Period
• Once initiated, the velocity, or speed, with
which an action potential travels down the
axon depends on two factors:
• (1) whether the fiber is myelinated and
• (2) the diameter of the fiber.
Thank You