
The magic of ion channels in the neurons - bucket2015
https://i-kh.net/2020/08/26/the-magic-of-ion-channels/
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hprotagonist
For the Nobel winning work on this from long ago, I heartily recommend:

    
    
      Hodgkin, A. L. (1958). The Croonian Lecture: Ionic Movements and Electrical Activity in Giant   Nerve Fibres. Biological Sciences, 148(930), 1–37. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/83088
    

This contains my absolute favorite figure caption ever:

 _A fresh and lively squid was taken out of the aquarium and immobilized by
cutting the nerves connecting the head with the stellate ganglion. The mantle
was opened ventrally by a single cut and was spread out under cooled
oxygenated sea water in a transparent dish. Using a motor car headlamp to
illuminate the animal and a binocular microscope to watch the penetration,..._

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gigama
Somewhere in the multiverse, a scientifically curious Heptapod takes a fresh
and lively humanoid from its terrarium and immobilizes it by cutting the
nerves connecting the stellate ganglion...

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trhway
Ender's Game series comes to mind.

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autisticcurio
I sometimes wonder if the phrase "they are an egg head" is not so much to do
with baldness but more to do with knowledge and intelligence.
Phosphatidylcholine (aka Lecithin found in Egg Yolk and elsewhere - 4 egg
yolks a day to meet RDA levels) can do wonders for your cell membranes and
Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) does wonders for your myelin sheaths. I'd be
surprised if F1 drivers & fighter pilots werent supplementing above RDA levels
with these. Using Potassium Chloride (sometimes called the good salt) helps
one to relax in the evening, and sodium chloride as a pick me up in the
morning. I wonder if this neuronal ion exchange is anything like the Sodium -
Potassium ATPase pump found in other cells as they seem similar. Life is just
a complex real-time chemical reaction.

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wombatmobile
How might the nervous system have evolved?

Wikipedia says: "Action potentials, which are necessary for neural activity,
evolved in single-celled eukaryotes. These use calcium rather than sodium
action potentials, but the mechanism was probably adapted into neural
electrical signalling in multicellular animals. In some colonial eukaryotes
such as Obelia electrical signals do propagate not only through neural nets,
but also through epithelial cells in the shared digestive system of the
colony."

So, the first "thought" was "hungry, want food"?

And everything we do to get to the 7/11 for snacks is built on that?

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rolph
cells can coordinate by diffusion of signal molecules larger multicellular
organisms can use circulatory transport to reduce latency of signals. larger
complex organisms coordinate systemic functions with neurons and the
electrical signaling between distant parts of the body.

latency is not a good thing to have when you are a motile animal, it limits
your overall size and complexity. animal phyla with nervous systems were able
to evolve larger bodies avoid being consumed by being too big to eat and
became consumers of smaller organisms.

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nextaccountic
I read somewhere that a significant fraction of the energy budget of the human
body is spent on ion pumps (the difference is that ion channels are passive
and ion pumps uses energy in form of ATP). That's because keeping an electric
potential[1] across the cell membrane drives the mechanism described in this
post (and others, like muscle contraction)

Anyway an overview of ion transport mechanisms across the cell membrane is [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemical_gradient](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemical_gradient)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_transport_protein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_transport_protein)

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xattt
This would explain the 20% (give or take) oxygen requirements of the brain.

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james_s_tayler
Interesting. I knew most of that more or less but didn't know the mechanism by
which the myelin sheath speed up the propagation of action potentials but it
makes sense.

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HarryHirsch
It starts with the telegraph equation. Try this magisterial and slightly
obsessive book: [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cellular-biophysics-2-vol-
set](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cellular-biophysics-2-vol-set)

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phasetransition
Interesting. Oliver Heaviside continues his posthumous exploits.

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channel-phd
I’m currently studying ion channels from a biophysical perspective for my PhD.
Beyond their fascinating role in neuronal physiology, check out the incredible
chemistry and biophysics! A great introduction is MacKinnon’s Nobel lecture:
[https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/mackinnon-
lecture...](https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/mackinnon-lecture.pdf)

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jeffybefffy519
Hate to be the guy to ask this but I like to dig into conspiracy shit like:
“5G is bad for our health”.

One of the theories is 4G & 5G cause mess with the electrochemical gradient
and voltage gated ion channels. Given you are studying them, whats your
opinions on this even being possible?

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fcatus
Remove the shadow from the website's title.

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failrate
Link 404

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knodi123
[https://i-kh.net/2020/08/26/the-magic-of-ion-
channels/](https://i-kh.net/2020/08/26/the-magic-of-ion-channels/)

~~~
dang
Thanks! we've changed to that from [https://i-kh.net/2020/08/26/how-signals-
propagate-through-ne...](https://i-kh.net/2020/08/26/how-signals-propagate-
through-neurons/).

