Abstract
EXPERIMENTS on nerve membranes and model systems (such as black lipid films modified by excitability-inducing material) often show conductance parameters which seem to be closely related to Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics1. There are, however, some difficulties when trying to fit simple Maxwell–Boltzmann factors to experiments. One often has to introduce an effective charge that is not an integer times the electronic charge and often the effective charge changes with voltage. We show here that the effective charge and its nonlinearity may be a consequence of the voltage distribution across the membrane. This implies that the so-called gating particles2 may be univalent charges—for example, electrons (I.L. and M.S., unpublished).
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Biophysics and Physiology of Excitable Membranes (edit. by Adelman, W. J., Jr) (van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1971).
Armstrong, C. M., and Bezanilla, F., Nature, 242, 459–461 (1973).
Ehrenstein, G., Lecar, H., and Nossal, R. J., Gen. Physiol., 55, 119–133 (1970).
Membranes, 2, Lipid Bilayers and Antibiotics (edit. by Eisenman, G.) (Marcel Dekker, New York, 1973).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
STENBERG, M., LUNDSTROM, I. & LUNDKVIST, L. Voltage distribution across nerve membranes. Nature 255, 496–497 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/255496a0
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/255496a0
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.