A Summary Ion Channels in the NerveCell Membrane

A Summary: Ion Channels in the Nerve-Cell Membrane In this article, Richard D. Keynes details the workings of ion channels in nerve cell membranes. Nerve impulses (action potentials) are the unit by which information travels in an organism’s nervous system, and the generation of this action potential is dependent on the nerve membrane being permeable to ions which in turn makes said membrane excitable. Electrical activity of a nerve is triggered by a depolarization …

…the nerve cell. The displacement current in a nerve cell is composed mostly of the gating current but is also partly due to the, “charging and discharging of the large static capacity of the membrane.” This current is recorded when the potential of a voltage-clamped cell is suddenly altered with a pulse. By comparing the displacement current values resulting from hyperpolarizing and depolarizing pulses, the gating current can be deducted from the total displacement current.