A single differential equation description of membrane properties underlying the action potential and the axon electric field

Abstract

In a succession of articles published over 65 years ago, Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley established what now forms our physical understanding of excitation in nerve, and how the axon conducts the action potential. They uniquely quantified the movement of ions in the nerve cell during the action potential, and demonstrated that the action potential is the result of a depolarizing event across the cell membrane. They confirmed that a complete depolarization event is followed by an abrupt increase in voltage that propagates longitudinally along the axon, accompanied by considerable increases in membrane conductance. In an elegant theoretical framework, they rigorously described fundamental properties of the Na+ and K+ conductances intrinsic to the action potential.

Keywords

• action potential
• axon
• core conductor
• current modulation
• field-dependent current
• hodgkin
• huxley
• langevin
• intracellular magnetization
• membrane conductance
• membrane depolarization
• membrane electric field
• myelinated nerve
• neuronal cable theory