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Colloquia Archive
Untitled Document
| DATE: |
Friday, February 1st, 2008 |
| TITLE: |
ACTION POTENTIALS AS PROPAGATING DENSITY PULSES AND THE ROLE
OF ANESTHETICS |
| TIME: |
3:30 PM |
| LOCATION: |
GMCS 214 |
| SPEAKER: |
Thomas Heimburg
Membrane Biophysics Group
Niels Bohr Institute
University of Copenhagen |
| ABSTRACT: |
The action of nerves has been one of the first topics of
interest in
biophysics. Important physicists like Galvani, Volta and Helmholtz were
among the first to study nerve pulse propagation. Nevertheless, there
still seems to be a communication barrier between molecular biology and
physics. Many models in biology contradict the intuition of a physicist
when it comes to the consideration of length and time scales, or to
the use and interpretation of physical variables. For the example of nerve
pulses and anesthesia it is shown that straightforward application of
thermodynamics may provide considerable insight into these seemingly
complicated processes.
Biological membranes display order transitions close to temperatures
of
physiological interest. This feature leads to the possibility of
density pulse (soliton) propagation in such membranes. We discuss the
propagating pulses in the context of several striking properties of nerve
membranes
under the influence of nerve pulses, including mechanical
dislocations and temperature changes. We relate it to the famous but so
far unexplained
Meyer-Overton rule stating that the effectiveness of an anesthetic is
proportional to its membrane solubility. Anesthesia may find an
explanation in the well-known general phenomenon of freezing point
depression.
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| HOST: |
Peter Salamon |
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reserved.
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Last
updated:
February 21, 2008 8:38 AM
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