BIOL 382 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Sodium Chloride, Ciliary Muscle, Lidocaine
10 Jan 2018
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Wet lab assignment 2: an action potential requires a threshold potential to be initiated. If the potential does not surpass the threshold, the action potential will not occur whatsoever (moyes cd, 2016). Action potentials also have refractory periods, which graded potentials do not (moyes cd, 2016). Action potentials cannot be summed together, whereas graded potentials may be spatially and temporally summed, to initiate an action potential (moyes cd, During the absolute refractory period, the na+ ion channels may no longer be opened due to the inactivation gate (moyes cd, 2016). The length constant is known to increase with a decrease in intracellular resistance or an increase in membrane resistance (moyes cd, 2016). Furthermore, this increase in the length constant ( ) will result in an increase of the conduction velocity. The time constant is known to increase as capacitance increases. An increase in the time constant ( ) means that the conduction velocity decreases (takes more time) (moyes cd, 2016).
