PHYS224 Lecture 20: Transmembrane potential and Action potential

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Physics
• Course: PHYS224
• Professor: Firas Mansour

Document Summary

I(cid:374) lay(cid:373)a(cid:374)"s ter(cid:373)s, tra(cid:374)s(cid:373)e(cid:373)(cid:271)ra(cid:374)e pote(cid:374)tial is the differe(cid:374)(cid:272)e i(cid:374) the ele(cid:272)tri(cid:272) pote(cid:374)tial (cid:271)et(cid:449)ee(cid:374) the interior and exterior of a call. The first page will set out to summarize tmp. The second page will summarize ap and give examples of both tmp and ap. Typically, this voltage ranges from -40mv to -80mv [2]. The most important ions are sodium (na) and potassium (k) and their involvement in action potential. There are other ions like calcium and chloride but biologically speaking, na and k provide a much broader field of study. The main influence for crossing the cell membrane is diffusion [2]. If we think of two areas, labelled a and b separated by a porous barrier, we can illustrate an example nicely [2]. A can be set to have 40 sodium and potassium ions while b has only 30 sodium and potassium ions.