Action Potential and Excitatory Postsynaptic Potential

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Take Home Essay 1: Action Potential
There is a series of events that leads to action potential. Neurons can send and receive input from other neurons through a chemical that is called a neurotransmitter, which is stored on the postsynaptic membrane. If the input is powerful enough, the neuron will send the message down downstream neurons from dendrite to axon terminals, and this process stimulates other neurons. Action potential is an electrical excitation that travels along the membrane neuron reaching the synaptic terminal (Inlow, 2013).
Beginning at the presynaptic membrane of the axon, the neuron membrane begins at its resting point potential, which is -70mV. The resting potential is the charge difference in a neuron membrane when the neuron is not active (Inlow, 2013). Since the inside of the membrane is more negative than the outside, the voltage gated potassium and sodium channels are closed, but the passive potassium channels are open to allow potassium to flow down into the concentration gradient out of the cell.
A triggering event occurs on the membrane, which causes it t...

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