Nerve cells

dr. Debby Mirani Lubis, MBiomed

• Graded potential
• Spatial summation
• Temporal summation
• Action potential conduction
• Saltatory conduction
 Nerve cells
• Nerve and muscle are excitable tissues 
Because they produce electrical signals when
excited.
• Neurons use these electrical signals to
receive, process, initiate, and transmit
messages
• Electrical signals are produced by changes in
ion movement across the plasma membrane
 Ion movement
• Changes in ion movement are brought about
by changes in membrane permeability in
response to triggering events.
• A triggering event triggers a change in
membrane potential by altering membrane
permeability and consequently altering ion
flow across the membrane
• the water-soluble ions  carrying charges 
cannot penetrate the plasma membrane’s
lipid bilayer
 cross the membrane only through
channels specific for them or by carrier-
mediated transport.
• Membrane channels may be either leak
channels or gated channels
 Membrane Channels
• leak channels  open all the time, permit
unregulated leakage of their specific ion
across the membrane through the channels.
• Gated channels  can be open or closed 
response to a triggering event that causes a
change in the conformation (shape) of the
protein that forms the gated channel.
 Four kinds of gated channels
(1) Voltage-gated channels open or close in response to
changes in membrane potential,
(2) Chemically gated channels change shape in response
to binding of a specific extracellular chemical
messenger to a surface membrane receptor,
(3) mechanically gated channels respond to stretching
or other mechanical deformation, and
(4) Thermally gated channels respond to local changes
in temperature (heat or cold).
 Electrical Signals
• There are two basic forms of electrical signals:
• (1) graded potentials, which serve as short-
distance signals, and
• (2) action potentials, which signal over long
distances
 Graded potentials
• Graded potentials are local changes in
membrane potential that occur in varying
grades or degrees of magnitude or strength.
• For example, membrane potential could
change from 270 to 260 mV (a 10-mV graded
potential) or from 270 to 250 mV (a 20-mV
graded potential).
 Graded potential
• The stronger a triggering event, the larger the
resultant graded potential
• The longer the duration of the triggering
event, the longer the duration of the graded
potential
• Graded potentials die out over short distances
• local currents die out within micrometers (less
than 1 mm) as they move away from the initial
site of change in potential and consequently can
function as signals for only very short distances
• The following are all graded potentials:
postsynaptic potentials, receptor potentials,
end-plate potentials, pacemaker potentials, and
slowwave potentials
 Action potentials
• Action potentials are brief, rapid, large (100-
mV) changes in membrane potential during
which the potential actually reverses
• Action potentials are conducted, or
propagated, throughout the entire membrane
nondecrementally
• they do not diminish in strength as they travel
from their site of initiation throughout the
remainder of the cell membrane
 Action potentials
• Unlike the variable duration of a graded
potential, the duration of an action potential is
always the same in a given excitable cell.
• In a neuron, an action potential lasts for only 1
msec (0.001 second).
• Once an action potential is initiated at the axon
hillock, no further triggering event is necessary
to activate the remainder of the nerve fiber.
• The impulse is automatically conducted
throughout the neuron without further
stimulation by one of two methods of
propagation: contiguous conduction or
saltatory conduction
• Action potentials occur in all-or-none fashion
• all-or-none law
 Saltatory Conduction
• Conduction in myelinated axons depends on a similar pattern of
circular current flow.
• However, myelin is an effective insulator, and current flow through
it is negligible.
• Instead, depolarization in myelinated axons jumps from one node
of Ranvier to the next, with the current sink at the active node
serving to electrotonically depolarize the node ahead of the action
potential to the firing level
• This jumping of depolarization from node to node is called
saltatory conduction.
• It is a rapid process that allows myelinated axons to conduct up to
50 times faster than the fastest unmyelinated fibers.
Saltatory conduction
• Action potential can be reached through
summation of graded potential over time and
space.
• Temporal summation occurs when the presynaptic
neuron fires local potentials so rapidly that they
overlap on each other to trigger an action potential.
• Spatial summation occurs when potentials from
different synapses add up locally to trigger an action
potential.