Bioelectricity

Week 1 Make Plans Electricity in solu6ons

Week 1 -2 Bioelectricity Introduc4on

About Bioelectricity
What is Bioelectricity? Why is this picture our course icon?

When did the study of Bioelectricity begin?

Answer: In the 1700s, in Italy, with Galvani and with Volta, in conict.

What was the Galvani-Volta conflict about?

Answer: Galvani thought that animal electricity was a dierent kind of electricity than the heat electricity of Volta.

Though now recognized as incorrect, why does that thought seem reasonable, even today?

How is electricity in living tissue different from the ordinary electricity of batteries, wires, radios and computers? What happens when you throw a standard battery into the ocean?

What happens when you throw a fish in the ocean?

Fish does ne.

;

This ray does too .

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Week 1 -3 Major sec4ons (weeks)

Course Information
8 weeks duration, with about 2 hours of lecture material each week, and a quiz each week Responsibilities of a student in the course watch presentations, do each assignment, participate in chat, observe code of ethics Within Bioelectricity broadly, what is included in the course?

There is a textbook with the same name as this course. How is this course related to that book?
Same major ideas More extensive and more mathema6cal presenta6on in the text Possibly useful for addi6onal gures, discussion, Q&A . . . but not required. Plonsey and Barr, Bioelectricity: A quan1ta1ve approach 3rd edi1on, 2007, Springer Science, New York. ISBN 978-0-387-48865-3

What are the weeks of the course?

Bioelectricity

Railroad analogy

Week 1
Bioelectricity 1. Make Plans Bioelectricity background Rec4ca4on of Names Electricity in Solu4ons Railroad 1. Make Plans

Week 2
Bioelectricity 2. Energy, to get Vm
Membrane patch Membrane resistance Membrane capacitance Ion pump Nernst Vm

Railroad 2. Sell Tickets, to get money

Week 3
Bioelectricity 3. Channels Railroad 3. Engines

Week 4
Bioelectricity 4. Ac4on poten4als
The Hodgkin-Huxley model Dierent kinds of channels coopersa6ng to create voltage pulses (ac6on poten6als)

Railroad 4. Train cars

Week 5
Bioelectricity 5. Currents within the 4ssue structure
Axial current and trans-membrane current as determined from Vm by the 6ssues structure

Railroad 5. Track

Week 6
Bioelectricity 6. Propaga4on
Bringing together channels, ac6on poten6als, and structure so that electrical signals (ac6on poten6als) move along a ber

Railroad 6. Train is moving

Week 7
Bioelectricity 7. Watching: Extracellular observa4on of ac4on poten4als moving through the structure
Such observa6on is the basis of clinical measurements such as the electrocardiogram.

Railroad 7. Watching the train go by

Week 8
Bioelectricity 8. Control of propaga4on
by means of trans-membrane or eld s6mula6on

Railroad 8. Control of the movement of the train

Final course comments

Bioelectricity Overview

What are the weeks of the course?

Bioelectricity

Railroad analogy

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Week 1 -4 Rec4ca4on of Names

Rectification of Names
The Rec4ca4on of Names: The idea is taken from the Confucian doctrine that social harmony is achieved by using the proper designa6ons for things. Bioelectricity deals with invisible objects, a big problem. Some conven6ons have been adopted to name the abstract things that are its elements.

Membranes
The lipid bilayer is a thin material around cells. It is made of two layers of lipid molecules. One end (circles) is hydrophilic. The middle (lines) is hydrophobic. The lipid bilayer is thin in comparison to a cell diameter. In this illustra6on, the cell diameter is 200,000 Angstroms, while the lipid bilayer is only 80A.

Positive membrane voltage & positive membrane current

This sign convention is always used.

Passive versus Active: same as dead versus alive?

Passive means that the same proper6es, such as resistance, are maintained without change. Ac6ve means that, due to some trigger, proper6es such as resistance do change.

Passive versus Active: same as dead versus alive?

Dead material is passive. Living 6ssue (such as electrically ac6ve membrane) is some6mes passive but ac6ve at other 6mes. Think of a resistor that is a million Ohms, but then changes to be a thousand, and then changes back. That is what is meant by ac6ve.

 Two dierent words with dierent meanings, but similar spelling. S6mula6on is an electrical current that crosses an electrically ac6ve 6ssue and thus aects it. S6mula6on may come from a natural or ar6cial source. Simula6on refers to a computer calcula6on that, usually, computes a 6me sequence.

Stimulation versus Simulation

Trans-membrane Stimulation vs Field Stimulation

Trans-membrane (Xm): one electrode inside Field: both s6mulus electrodes outside

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Week 1 -5 Electricity in Solu4ons

What are the mathematical rules for electricity in solutions?

All the fundamentals are the same, e.g. Maxwells equa6ons. In applica6on, most everything is dierent. For example, ions move, not electrons. Charges become current sources. The dielectric constant becomes the conduc6vity. It can be confusing.

Ions in Solution
An ion is a atom or molecule with a charge, because the number of electrons diers from the number of protons. For example, in water ordinary table salt ---NaCl divides into sodium and chloride ions, Na+ and Cl- . Each is charged because an extra electron goes with sodium. The presence of ions gives a solu6on electrical conduc6vity because ions move.

Ions and conductivity

Ions carry charge and move. Conduc6vity is a measure of how many and how easily charges move. So, loosely, the higher the concentra6ons of ions the greater the conduc6vity. For electrophysiology, the concentra6ons of the ions of sodium, potassium, and chloride are par6cularly signicant.

Resis6vity and sea water

In ocean water the resis6vity is around about 25 ohm-cm. The conduc6vity is the reciprocal, 1/25 Siemans per cm.

Resis6vity and sea water

To get the resistance of the walls of a cubical container lled with a solu6on of known resis6vity, mul6ply the resis6vity by the length and divide by the cross-sec6onal area. The result will be in Ohms. For example, what is the resistance along a box with length 10cm if the cross sec6on is square with each edge 5cm? The resis6vity is 25 Ohm-cm.

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Week 1 -6 RT/F and other physical constants

RT/F
RT/F is a kind of conversion factor between ionic concentra6ons and voltages R is the gas constant: 8.314 Joules per (degree K *moles) T is the absolute temperature. 0 degrees C is 273.16 degrees K F is Faradays constant: 96,487 Coulombs/mole
Please double check all these values using standard references.

RT/F
RT/F is about 26 milli-Volts Why is 26 milli-Volts a kind of natural constant?

Faradays constant
F is Faradays constant: 96,487 Coulombs/mole
Where does this value come from? From here: Avagadros number, is 6.02e23 molecules per mole. The charge on one electron is 1.6e-19 Coulombs. Mul6ply them to get F

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Week 1 -7 Sources and Sinks in Conduc4ve Medium

Sources and sinks in a conductive medium, a sketch

What does divergence diverge from?

Answer: From sources and sinks
The way you know if a point is a source is drawing a closed surface around the point and totaling the current through the surface. Is the eld point a source?

What is the concept of potential?

To have a scalar func6on with a gradient propor6onal to the current. By analogy, to have a hill that has a slope propor6onal to the current.

The equation for potential?

For one source and one sink, the poten6al at eld point p is given by

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Week 1 -8 Electric poten4als as compared to Voltages

Potentials versus Voltages

A set of poten6als are all measured against a common reference point. A set of voltages may be measured in independent pairs. Both are in units of Volts.

Potentials versus Voltages

Example?

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Week 1 -9 Forces exerted by electric elds

Electrical Forces
A molecule or other object with a charge feels a push when it is in an electrical eld.
Think of lightening --- molecules are ripped apart by the huge electrical eld in the lightening bolt. Think of light bulbs electrons are pushed through wires or across gaps by an electric eld. Think of ion-selec4ve channels through members (more to come in a later week).

In solutions, are electric fields still the (negative) gradient of potential?

Yes, and force is propor6onal to eld. The eld is the nega6ve of the gradient of poten6al. The gradient is the rate of change in poten6al with distance. Even if the change in poten6al is small, the eld can be big.

F = E q

Fields are proportional to forces

F is the force E is the magnitude of the electric eld q is the charge So, a bigger electric eld means a higher force (for the same charge)

Fields can be big

E = change in poten6al / change in distance

When poten6al changes are small, elds can be big if the change is over a short distance, because then the ra6o can be large and thus the eld E large.

Fields can be big

Another example: Membranes, studied in a later week, have poten6al change across very small distance (thickness of the membrane). o That means there is a big eld, and that big mechanical forces occur on charges within the membrane (because F = Eq).

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Week 1 -10 Bio-magne4sm, or the lack thereof

Biomagnetism
There are no natural inductors in tissue.
So, There is no natural equivalent to electric motors.

However, small but measurable magnetic fields are created by bioelectric currents.

As these magnetic fields are smaller than the earths magnetic field, special equipment is required.

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Week 1 -11 Problem session

Problem Session
If a source of 1 mA is located at the origin, and a sink of -1mA is located at x=10 mm (y,z zero), A) What is the potential at point A: x,y=0, z = 1 cm? B) At point B: x = 1, y=0, z=1 cm? C) What is the voltage between points A and B? (The resistivity of the medium is 100.5 ohm-cm.)

Week 1 -12 Week in Review

Conclusions for the week

Galvani was wrong. Electricity is fundamentally the same thing in living 6ssue, solu6ons, and ordinary experience. Galvani was right. The manifesta6ons and rules are dierent, e.g. the problem of the batery versus the sh in the sea. RT/F is 26 mV, more or less. The math of electricity in solu6on is similar to but not the same as dry-land electricity. In bioelectricity, there are big elds and forces across short distances.

Good-bye for Week 1