Abstract
It has been pointed out in Chap. 12.3 that between the exterior and the interior side of a living cell an electrical potential exists, the membrane potential. This membrane potential usually has a value of—50 to —100 mV; i.e., by means of a microelectrode which, starting from a zero potential in the outside medium, is inserted into the cell, a negative potential is measured at the inner side of the cell membrane. This potential mostly is relatively constant and is named “resting potential”. As discussed in detail in Chap. 12.3, it is caused by the unequal distribution of the different species of ions inside and outside the cell, as well as by a rather selective permeability of the cell membrane for different ions. The resting potential itself influences the distribution of ions across the cell membrane, and also the manifold transport processes for charged molecules. The value of the resting potential also can have a regulatory action on the amplitude of a certain transport process.
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Dudel, J. et al. (1983). Neurobiophysics. In: Hoppe, W., Lohmann, W., Markl, H., Ziegler, H. (eds) Biophysics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-68877-5_15
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