SYNAPTIC TRANSMISSION: BLOCK 1

I.

II.

People, Experiments, and Research

a. Sakmann and Neher
i. Founders of what experimental technique?
b. Charles Sherrington
i. What was he studying? What did he find? Important implications of his findings?
ii. What important component of the neural function did he name?
c. Galvani and DuBois-Reymond
i. Set up their experiment (connections, animal, part of body used)
ii. What were they measuring?
iii. What did their experiment suggest?
1. Animal electricity
d. Camillo Golgi and Reticular Theory
i. What did the Golgi stain show?
ii. What did he believe about neurons connections based on his observations?
e. Ramon y Cajal
i. What did he use to argue that axons and dendrites are never continuous with one
another, and that axons end in a certain apparatus?
f. Sir Henry Dale
i. Did he believe synaptic transmission was chemical or electrical?
ii. What chemical did he work with, and what effect did it have on cardiac/skeletal
muscles?
g. Otto Loewi
i. Describe the model of his experiment
ii. Why was it lucky that he chose a frog to experiment with?
iii. General principle put forth?
h. Fatt and Katz
i. 1950 what did they record in postsynaptic muscle cells?
1. Where was this seen?
2. Why were postsynaptic sodium channels blocked?
ii. 1952 what did they observe when there was NO nerve stimulation?
1. There are 4 similarities between mEPPs and EPPs. List them.
2. What happened when various amounts of ACh were applied to the
postsynaptic cell?
3. What was the effect of varying extracellular calcium concentrations on
mEPPs and EPPs? What did these results suggest?
i. Katz and Miledi
i. What technique did they use to conclude that approximately 2000 receptors
opened for each mEPP, and that about 5000 molecules of ACh were released per
mEPP?
ii. 3 conditions of the Quantal Theory of Chemical Synaptic Transmission
j. Sanford Palay
i. Significance in determining structure of synapse?
Lecture 1: Neurophysiology/Synaptic Specialization
a. Basic Neurophysiology
i. Explain the difference between neurophysiology and synaptic transmission
ii. Know rough estimates of intracellar/extracellular ion concentrations

III.

iii. What is the typical membrane capacitance? (size of capacitor ~ membrane

capacitance)
iv. Resting membrane potential:
1. Equilibrium is determined by a combination of the concentration gradient
drive and the electrical forces
2. At equilibrium, the number of ions in equal the number of ions out
a. Which is affected more by the movement of each ion the change
in electrical gradient, or the change in the concentration gradient?
i. What is the implication of this?
3. The equilibrium point equals _______
4. Other terms for equilibrium potential
5. Two main factors that control RMP
6. What is voltage in terms of a neuron?
7. What factors keep Vm slightly away from EK
8. Resting membrane potential is NOT at equilibrium for either sodium or
potassium; thus, there is a net flow of ____ in and ____ out.
9. What kind of pump is the Na+/K+ pump?
10. The slight change in the membrane potential, due to Na+/K+ pump alters
the balance of Na+ influx and K+ efflux. There is more electrical driving
force for the ____ to enter, and less electrical driving force to move ___
out (closer to Ek and further from ENa)
a. At this new resting state, the net passive flux through the leak
channels exactly balances the active pumping of the ions.
Lecture 2
a. Driving Force
i. What is the driving force?
ii. Driving forces is equal to _______
iii. What does a positive DF indicate? A negative one?
iv. K+ example
v. Na+ example
vi. Conductance, in biological terms, is equal to ________ ________, and is referring
to the ____ of ions across the membrane through ________ _______ or ____
________
vii. Explain resistance in cellular terms
viii. Compare and contrast conductance (g) and resistance (R)
ix. Explain the relation between resistance and size of a neuron.
x. Know Ohms Law
b. Ion Channels
i. Ion channels are biological units that explain electrical resistance and
conductance. ___________ _______ that are selective for individual ions are
called ion channels.
ii. Ion channels are often gated by external influence; give an example of each of the
following types of gating:
1. Voltage potential difference across membrane
2. Ligand binding to external surface
3. Ligand binding to internal surface
4. Membrane Stretch

c. Voltage-Gated Ion Channels

i. How is the structure of these channels inferred?
ii. Describe the basic structure of all voltage-gated channels
1. What forms the pore of these channels?
2. What is the P-loop?
3. What is the significance of the S4 alpha helix?
iii. What is the major difference between sodium and calcium channels vs. potassium
channels?
iv. How do voltage-gated ion channels achieve ion selectivity?
d. Channel Function
i. Four important functional properties that are often plotted as they relate to Vm:
1. Voltage-Dependence of Activation Curves
a. What do these plots tell us?
b. Can you look at these plots independently an be certain that an ion
will actually move across the membrane? If no, why not?
2. Driving Force Curves
a. What do they tell us?
3. Current Flux During Square Test DPs to larger and large values
4. Current-Voltage Relationship Curves
a. What do these represent?