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The action potential

¹ Post-doctural Research Fellow Centre for Integrative Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
² Lecturer Centre for Neuroscience Research, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr M W Barnett
Centre for Integrative Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, UK; M.Barnett@ed.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

It is over 60 years since Hodgkin and Huxley¹ made the first direct recording of the electrical changes across the neuronal membrane that mediate the action potential. Using an electrode placed inside a squid giant axon they were able to measure a transmembrane potential of around –60 mV inside relative to outside, under resting conditions (this is called the resting membrane potential). The action potential is a transient (<1 millisecond) reversal in the polarity of this transmembrane potential which then moves from its point of initiation, down the axon, to the axon terminals. In a subsequent series of elegant experiments Hodgkin and Huxley, along with Bernard Katz, discovered that the action potential results from transient changes in the permeability of the axon membrane to sodium (Na⁺) and potassium (K⁺) ions. Importantly, Na⁺ and K⁺ cross the membrane through independent pathways that open in response to a change in . . . [Full text of this article]

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