Hodgkin and Huxley and the basis for electrical signalling: A remarkable legacy still going strong

摘要

The initiation and propagation of electrical signals in nerves and other excitable tissues have fascinated physiologists for well over a century. For much of the first half of the twentieth century the prevailing explanation for the depolarization occurring during an action potential was that of 'membrane-breakdown' suggested by Bernstein in 1902. He proposed that at rest the cell membrane was selectively permeable to K~+ ions, which would tend to diffuse out of the cells down their electrochemical gradient and maintain a negative resting membrane potential. According to this model an action potential was then triggered by a transient increase in permeability for all ions and hence the cell membrane potential would approach zero.