The Problem of Excitability

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-3

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2. Excitability and Relationships Between the Initial and Critical Values of the Membrane Potential

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 5-20

3. The Resting Potential

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 21-35

4. Passive and Subthreshold Active Changes in the Membrane Potential

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 37-52

5. The Action Potential

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 53-103

6. Dependence of Action Potential Parameters on the Constants of Membrane Ionic Permeability

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 105-144

7. Analysis of Threshold Conditions of Stimulation and the Relationship Between the Threshold Current and Threshold Potential

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 145-175

8. Role of the Rate of Change of the Stimulus. The Phenomenon of Accommodation

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 177-211

9. Cable Properties and Geometry of Excitable Structures and Parameters of Their Electrical Activity

   • B. I. Khodorov

   Pages 213-255

10. Molecular Mechanisms of Ionic Permeability of the Excitable Membrane

    • B. I. Khodorov

    Pages 257-296

11. Conclusion

    • B. I. Khodorov

    Pages 297-303

12. Addendum

    • B. I. Khodorov

    Pages 305-308

13. Back Matter

    Pages 309-329

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The Russian edition of this book appeared in 1969 and im­ mediately gained widespread recognition as a reference work for research workers interested in the physiology, biophysics, and pharmacology of excitable tissues. There are several reasons for the book's success. It deals with a key problem in biology which has recently been the subject of very intensive study and it is of great interest to a wide scientific audience. Not only the fundamentals of the modern membrane theory of biopotentials, but also the vast factual material collected in the last decades by the study of the biophysical and pharmacological properties of the ionic permeability pores of the cell membrane, are described in the book in an authoritative yet readable form. Special attention is paid in the book to the systematic analysis of the consequences of the Hodgkin-Huxley mathematical theory of the nervous impulse for the problem of excitability. The relationship between the various parameters of excitability (threshold potential, threshold current, useful time), accommodation, and the action potential on the one hand, and the constants of ionic permeability of the nerve fiber membrane, on the other hand, is subjected to detailed examination in this context. To do this, the author has made extensive use not only of experimental results obtained on isolated fibers (especially single nodes of Ran­ vier), but also the results of his own investigations on mathematical models of excitable membranes.

• attention
• biology
• cognition
• experiment
• media
• physiology
• research
• time
• tissue

• A. V. Vishnevskii Surgery Institute, Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, USSR

  B. I. Khodorov

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