Home > FAQ

Cellular and Autonomic Physiology

FAQ: What are the conventions for membrane potentials, currents, and the like?
Back to FAQs

Here are a few basic definitions and conventions that you may have forgotten or may
never have known. Life will be vastly better once you get the terms down.
1. Membrane potentials (Vm) are always expressed as intracellular relative to
extracellular potential. Thus, if we say a membrane potential is -70 mV, that means
inside negative. At rest, all excitable cells have negative Vm.
2. Equilibrium potentials, calculated with the Nernst equation for a given ion, are
always expressed as intracellular relative to extracellular. If we say an ions
equilibrium potential is -90 mV, that means inside negative.
3. Current flow (or current) in physiology is carried by ions. So, when your professor
talks about physiologic experiments in which current is measured, that means flow of
ions (e.g., Na+, K+, Cl-).
4. Depolarization means the membrane potential becomes less negative, or positive.
5. Hyperpolarization means the membrane potential becomes more negative.
6. Repolarization means membrane potential is returning to its resting level, which for
excitable cells means it is becoming more inside negative.
7. Conductance = g = 1/resistance, or 1/R. To use conductance instead of resistance
in Ohms law: V = I R make the substitution of g = 1/R V = I/g
FAQ: What is a reversal potential?
Back to FAQs

We calculate the equilibrium potential for an ion at a given concentration difference with
the Nernst equation. The equilibrium potential says what potential difference would put
the ion at electrochemical equilibrium at that concentration difference.
Reversal potential is measured in a voltage clamp experiment. In the experiment, there
is a pre-set concentration difference across the membrane for the ion. Then, voltage
(potential difference) across the membrane is held, or clamped, at a series of values.
At each clamped voltage, current is measured (both direction and quantity of current
flow). Lets say, for illustration, that the membrane being clamped is highly permeable to
K+ and no other ion. At each clamped voltage, therefore, the current measured is a K+
current. (Since no other ion is permeant, K+ is the only ion that can carry charge across
the membrane.) The direction and magnitude of the current flow (measured in the
experiment) depends on the electrochemical gradient for K+ across the membrane. When
the clamped voltage is exactly equal to the K+ equilibrium potential, the direction of
current flow reverses (e.g., from out to in) and, at that potential, there is zero current
flow. (Perhaps a better name for reversal potential would be zero current flow
potential.) In the previous scenario, the reversal potential = the potential at which there