01:830:331 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Voltmeter, Extracellular Fluid, Resting Potential
24 Jul 2016
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~the walls of the capillaries in the brain don"t have gaps between cells, like rest of the body does. ~but the walls are selectively permeable, chemicals can be actively transported by protein channels. The interstitial (?) fluid in the cns needs to be maintained at precise composition and concentration, allowing stuff from blood to leak in would disrupt the balance. Also we eat crap food, chemicals that would mess up neuronal communication so it keeps that out. ~but there are places where the blood-brain barrier is loosened. Area postrema controls vomiting, subhanallah it is designed so that those neurons can detect poison in blood and induce vomiting to get rid of poison. ~synapse can also affect an inhibitory interneuron which will suppress a competing excitation. ~squid is a model organism for neurons and especially axons the giant axon in the squid. ~electrodes connected to a voltmeter are used to measure charge in an axon relative to surroundings.
