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An action potential (or nerve impulse) is a transient alteration of the transmembrane voltage (or membrane potential) across the membrane in an excitable cell generated by the activity of voltage-gated ion channels embedded in the membrane. The best known action potentials are pulse-like waves that travel along the axons of neurons.
Vesicles are essential for propagating nerve impulses between neurons and are constantly recreated by the cell. The area in the axon that holds groups of vesicles is an axon terminal or "terminal bouton". Up to 130 vesicles can be released per bouton over a ten-minute period of stimulation at 0.2 Hz. [1]
When a nerve is stimulated, i.e., when sufficient electrical charge is provided to a nerve cell, a localized depolarization of the cell wall occurs resulting in an action potential that propagates toward both ends of the axon. Typically, one "wave" of action potentials will propagate along the axon towards the muscle (orthodromic propagation ...
Normally, current carried by ions could travel in either direction through this type of synapse. [2] However, sometimes the junctions are rectifying synapses , [ 2 ] containing voltage-gated ion channels that open in response to depolarization of an axon's plasma membrane, and prevent current from traveling in one of the two directions. [ 17 ]
In neuroscience, nerve conduction velocity (CV) is the speed at which an electrochemical impulse propagates down a neural pathway. Conduction velocities are affected by a wide array of factors, which include age, sex, and various medical conditions.
Quantal size can then be defined as the synaptic response to the release of neurotransmitter from a single vesicle, while quantal content is the number of effective vesicles released in response to a nerve impulse.