1. Hodgkin and Huxley performed various experiments on giant squid axons. These

Question

1. Hodgkin and Huxley performed various experiments on giant squid axons. These axons proved to be valuable to neuroscientific research because their large size allowed researchers to visualize the relationship between conduction, resistance, and diameter. Giant squid axons are unmyelinated, but are still fast at conducting messages down the axon. Why do you think that the giant squid axon can conduct fast messages? You may use outside resources to answer this question.

2. Obviously, humans do not have axons that are the size of the giant squid axon in our brains. Our axons are much smaller. What other sort of mechanism permits fast transduction without relying on the size of the axon? Why is this mechanism just as efficient?

Explanation / Answer

1. According to the cable theory, the bigger diameter axons conduct current faster. In an axon, electrical charge is conducted by the salty solution inside the axon, but this also leaks out of the axon through little pores known as ion channels. In a fatter axon, such as giant squid axons. there is more membrane and thus more channels, decreasing the electrical resistance of the membrane, but at the same time there is more salty solution inside the axon decreasing the electrical resistance along the length of the axon even more. Thus relatively more current will travel down the length of the axon than will leak out via the membrane.

Please post the other questions separately as we are supposed to answer just one question or four sub parts of a question.

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