Scribd
Upload
12 views

Lecture 5

Immunology

Uploaded by

hazharomar958
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
12 views

Lecture 5

Immunology

Uploaded by

hazharomar958
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 23

RESTING

MEMBRANE
POTENTIAL
Peshraw S. Hamadamin
Hyman physiology
First Semester
Week 5
Date 30/10/2024
Outline
◦ Electrical potential
◦ Membrane potential
◦ Resting Membrane potential
◦ Role of Na and K in resting membrane potential
◦ Role of Na- K pump in resting membrane potential
Objectives
◦ Understanding electrical potential (Votage)
◦ Understanding current
◦ Understanding membrane potential
◦ Understanding the role of membrane potential
◦ Explaining the process of making resting membrane potential
Electrical Potentials and Currents

• Difference in electrical charge from one point to another is called an electrical


potential, or voltage. It typically measures 12 volts (V) for a car battery and 1.5
V for a flashlight battery
• It is a form of potential energy that, under the right circumstances, can produce
a current. An electrical current is a flow of charged particles from one point to
another.
• A new flashlight battery, for example, typically has a potential, or charge, of 1.5
volts (V). If a lightbulb and the two poles of the battery are connected by a
wire, electrons flow through the wire from one pole to the other, creating a
current that lights the bulb. As long as the battery has a potential (voltage), we
say it is polarized
Electrical Potentials and Currents

• Living cells are also polarized and Electrical potentials exist across the
membranes of virtually all cells of the body due to unequally
distribution of ions between the interior of cells and the fluid that
surrounds them.
• The charge difference across the plasma membrane is called the resting
membrane potential (RMP). It is much less than the potential of a
flashlight battery— typically about –70 millivolts (mV) in an
unstimulated, “resting” neuron. The negative value means there are
more negatively charged particles on the inside of the membrane than
on the outside.
Currents in body

We don’t have free electrons in the body as we do in an electrical circuit.

Electrical currents in the body are created, instead, by the flow of ions such as

Na+ and K+ through gated channels in the plasma membrane. Gated channels can

be opened and closed by various stimuli, as we have seen earlier


Why we have membrane potential ?

• Neural communication, like muscle excitation, is based on electrophysiology—


cellular mechanisms for producing electrical potentials and currents. Nerve and
muscle cells, are capable of generating rapidly changing electrochemical impulses
at their membranes, and these impulses are used to transmit signals along the
nerve or muscle membranes.

• In other types of cells, such as glandular cells, macrophages, and ciliated cells,
local changes in membrane potentials also activate many of the cells’ functions.
Resting membrane potential(RMP):
It refers to the difference in electric charge across the cell's plasma membrane when an
excitable cell is at rest, meaning it is not actively sending or receiving signals. This electrical
charge difference is essential for the proper functioning of these cells.

• At resting membrane potential inside the


cell(ICF) is more negative compared to
outside the cell (ECF)
• A typical value of RMP is: -70 mV(-50 to -
90) • A cell that exhibits a membrane
potential is said to be polarized.
The formation of Resting Membrane Potential

The reason a cell has a resting membrane potential is that electrolytes are unequally
distributed between the extracellular fluid (ECF) on the outside of the plasma
membrane and the intracellular fluid (ICF) on the inside(Due to Na+-K+ pump)

The RMP results from the combined effect of three factors:


1. The diffusion of ions down their concentration gradients through the membrane;
2. Selective permeability of the membrane, allowing some ions to pass more easily
than others;
3. The electrical attraction of cations and anions to each other.
Potassium (K+) and sodium ions (Na+) play an essential role in the
formation of the resting potential
• Potassium ions (K+) have the greatest influence on the RMP because the plasma membrane is
more permeable to K+ than to any other ion. Imagine a hypothetical cell in which all the K+
starts out in the ICF, with none in the ECF.
• Also in the ICF are a number of cytoplasmic anions that cannot escape from the cell because of
their size or charge—phosphates, sulfates, small organic acids, proteins, ATP, and RNA.
Potassium ions diffuse freely through leak channels in the plasma membrane, down their
concentration gradient and out of the cell, leaving these cytoplasmic anions behind
• As a result, the ICF grows more and more negatively charged. But as the ICF becomes more
negative, it exerts a stronger attraction for the positive potassium ions and attracts some of
them back into the cell
• Eventually an equilibrium is reached in which K+ is moving out of the cell (down
its concentration gradient) and into the cell (by electrical attraction) at equal
rates. There is no further net diffusion of K+. At the point of equilibrium, K+ is
about 40 times as concentrated in the ICF as in the ECF.
• If K+ were the only ion affecting the RMP, it would give the membrane potential of
about –90 mV.
• However, sodium ions(Na+) also enter the picture. Sodium is about 12 times as
concentrated in the ECF as in the ICF. The resting plasma membrane is much less
permeable to Na+ than to K+, but Na+ does diffuse down its concentration gradient
into the cell, attracted by the negative charge in the ICF.
• The resting membrane potential is close to this equilibrium potential of K⁺ (around
-70 mV in neurons) because K⁺ has the highest permeability at rest.
• This sodium leak is only a trickle, but it is enough to cancel some of the negative
charge and reduce the voltage across the membrane.
• Na+ diffuses into the cell, making the inside of the cell less negative. If we
model a membrane in which the only open channels are selectively
permeable to Na+, we find that a tenfold higher concentration of Na+ in the
outer chamber results in an equilibrium potential (ENa) of +62 mV.

• Each molecule move down its concentration gradient, but this movement it balanced by opposite
movement of ion when electrical potential (force) is form and equal the chemical potential (equilibrium
is reached)
• The magnitude of the membrane voltage at equilibrium for a particular ion is called that ion’s
equilibrium potential (Eion).
• Equilibrium potential (Eion), for each ion is the voltage when gradient potential is equal to electrical
potential
• Equilibrium potential of K(EK) = -90 mV
• Equilibrium potential of Na(ENa) = +62 mV
• The sum of Equilibrium potential of K and NA is -70. which is called resting potential
• Sodium leaks into the cell and potassium leaks out, but the sodium–
potassium (Na+–K+) pump continually compensates for this leakage.
• It pumps 3 Na+ out of the cell for every 2 K+ it brings in, consuming 1 ATP for
each exchange cycle.
• By removing more cations from the cell than it brings in, it contributes about
–3 mV to the RMP. The resting membrane potential of –70 mV is the net
effect of all these ion movements—K+ diffusion out of the cell, Na+ diffusion
inward, and the Na+–K+ pump continually offsetting this ion leakage
• Sodium leaks into the cell and potassium leaks out, but the sodium–
potassium (Na+–K+) pump continually establish the chemical concentration
gradient for Na and K
• The Na+–K+ pump accounts for about 70% of the energy (ATP) requirement of
the nervous system. Every signal generated by a neuron slightly upsets the
distribution of Na+ and K+, so the pump must work continually to restore
equilibrium. This is why nervous has one of the highest rates of ATP
consumption of any tissue in the body, and why it demands so much glucose
and oxygen.
• Although a neuron is said to be resting when it is not producing signals, it is
highly active maintaining its RMP and “waiting,” as it were, for something to
happen
References

◦ Hall, J. E., & Hall, M. E. (2020). Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical
Physiology. Elsevier.
◦ Saladin, K. (2020). Anatomy & Physiology: The Unity of Form and Function.
McGraw-Hill Education.

You might also like