Action Potential Essay

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The ability to do literally anything is due to the action potential originating in neuronal cells. It makes it possible for neurons to convey vital information over long distances, such as from pain receptors in the foot to muscle contractions in the leg, causing a reflexive move away from the painful stimulus. Without this kind of rapid communication throughout the nervous system, humans and other organisms would be unable to function. The neurons themselves are small, self-driven circuits, each producing the small but vital biological cycle that is the action potential. Its many parts work in harmony to produce the ability for communication on the cellular level.
The action potential is a rapid reversal of charge and permeability in a neuronal …show more content…

During the undershoot phase, the cell goes into what is known as a refractory period, which has two types: absolute and relative. An absolute refractory period is one in which the neuron is unable to generate another action potential regardless of the amount of stimulus. This is when the sodium channels of the membrane have been inactivated by the recent action potential and are unable to open and close to permit ion flow, thus disabling the membrane’s ability to reach threshold—the minimum voltage required to have an action potential occur. Since the action potential is known as an all-or-nothing reaction, unless the cell can reach that minimum threshold, another depolarization will not occur. The relative refractory period is a state during which only some of the voltage-gated sodium channels have been blocked off. In this case, the membrane can reach threshold if given a larger-than-normal stimulus.
Sometimes neurons are negatively influenced by the voltage-gated sodium channels’ loss of ability. Tetrodotoxin (TTX) and saxitoxin are two of the deadliest poisons in the world, found in pufferfish and poison dart frogs, respectively. The reason they are so dangerous is that they block only voltage-gated sodium channels (as opposed to blocking both sodium and potassium channels, as done by medical anesthetics), and therefore completely throw off the relationship between the sodium channels and the potassium channels, and therefore the balance between concentrations of Na+ and K+

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