Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Membrane Potential

Membrane Potential is a separation of charges across a membrane.  In other words, it is positive on one side and negative on the other.

You could think of the "potential" as potential to do work.  When you have concentration gradients of ions, that is potential energy, like the elevator analogy.

Wikipedia

I haven't taken the time to actually watch these, but there are several videos on Khan Academy going over this and may be a great resource:
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/healthcare-and-medicine/heart-depolarization/v/membrane-potentials---part-1


At 1:57-3:00 of this video, it discusses chemical/ concentration gradient and electrical gradient and how they get to equilibrium (resting membrane potential for potassium).


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