Potencial de

acción
Vm = Vin - Vout
ion /flux = (electrical driving force + chemical driving force) x membrane conductance.
Vm = Vin - Vout
 Canales de sodio

1. Luego del pick del potencial de acción, los canales de Na+ se

comienzan a inactivar.
2. La apertura de canales de K+ gatillados por voltaje provoca un
aumento gradual en el flujo de salida de iones K+. Este aumento
en la conductancia es más lento que el aumento en la
conductancia del Na+.
El aumento del flujo de salida de K+ junto con la disminución del
flujo de entrada de Na+, producen un flujo de salida neto de cargas
positivas, el cual continúa hasta que la célula se ha repolarizado.
Una tercera propiedad importante en la
propagación de la señal neuronal a lo largo
de las dendritas y axones es la resistencia
intracelular axial.
La Resistencia de la membrana y axoplasmica afectan la eficiencia en la
conducción de la señal.

If current is injected into a dendrite at one point, how

will the membrane potential change along the length
of the dendrite?
The change in membrane potential becomes smaller
with distance along the dendrite away from the current
electrode (Figure 6–16A). This decay with distance is
exponential and expressed by 'V(x) = 'V0 e–x /,, where ,
is the membrane length constant, x is the distance from
the site of current injection, and 'V0 is the change in
membrane potential produced by the current at the site
of injection (x = 0).
La constant de espacio es la distancia a lo largo de la cual
la dendrita al sitio en que el potencial Vm ha decaido a
1/e o al 37% del valor inicial (Figure 6–16B). Es una
medida de la eficiencia de la transmission por
electrotono, the passive spread of voltage changes along
the neuron, and is determined by the values of
membrane and axial resistance as follows:
lambda = Raiz (rm/ra).
The better the insulation of the membrane (that is,
the greater rm) and the better the conducting properties
of the inner core (the lower ra), the greater the length
constant of the dendrite. That is because current is able
to spread farther along the inner conductive core of the
dendrite before leaking across the membrane at some
point x to alter the local membrane potential:
'V(x) = i(x) ( rm.
The ef1ciency of electrotonic conduction has
two important effects on neuronal function.
First, it in/uences spatial summation, the
process by which synaptic potentials
generated in different regions of the neuron
are added together at the trigger zone at the
axon hillock (see Chapter 10). Second,
electrotonic conduction is a factor in the
propagation of the action potential. Once
the membrane at any point along an axon
has been depolarized beyond threshold, an
action potential is generated in that region.
This local depolarization spreads passively
down the axon, causing successive adjacent
regions of the membrane to reach the
threshold for generating an action potential
(Figure 6–17). Thus the depolarization
spreads along the length of the axon by local
current driven by the difference in potential
between the active and resting regions of
the axon membrane. In axons with longer
length constants local current spreads a
greater distance down the axon, and
therefore the action potential propagates
more rapidly.