Physics of Nerves and Excitatory Membranes

Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 History of neuroscience 1.2 Nerves 1.3 Electrophysiological findings from Bernstein, Hodgkin-Huxley until today 1.3.1 Julius Bernstein 1.3.2 Curtis & Cole 1.3.3 Hodgkin & Huxley 1.3.4 1.4 Physical findings from Galvani to Tasaki 1.4.1 Galvani & Volta 1.4.2 Helmholtz 1.4.3 Wilke 1.4.4 A. V. Hill 1.4.5 Tasaki 1.5 Membrane permeability 1.5.1 protein channels 1.5.2 lipid channels 1.6 The Hodgkin-Huxley model 1.7 The electromechanical soliton model 1.8 Anesthesia 1.9 Some thoughts about the nature of a scientific theory 2 Experimental data on nerve pulse propagation 2.1 Current and voltage measurements 2.1.1 Membranes as capacitors 2.1.2 The ion selectivity of membranes 2.2 The heat production of nerve 2.3 Mechanical measurements on nerves 2.4 Optical observations 3 The electrophysiological interpretation of nerve data 3.1 The Hodgkin Huxley model 3.2 The FitzHugh-Nagumo Model . 4 Biomembrane theory 4.1 Introduction into thermodynamic 4.2 Thermodynamics of membranes 4.2.1 Membrane melting 4.3 Entropy as a potential 4.4 Fluctuations 4.5 Thermodynamics variables 4.5.1 voltage 4.5.2 pressure 5 Biomembrane composition, melting and adaptation 5.1 Composition 5.2 Biomembrane melting 6 Introduction into hydrodynamics 6.1 History 6.2 The hydrodynamic equations 6.3 Hydrodynamics of membranes 7 Solitons 7.1 History 7.2 Bussinesc solitons 8 Experimental properties of membranes 8.1 heat capacity 8.2 compressibility 8.3 sound velocity 8.3.1 sound propagation on monofilms 8.4 dispersion 9 The electromechanical theory for nerves 9.1 Solitary pulses 9.2 Pulse trains and refractory period 9.3 Stability of pulses 9.4 Pulse energy 9.5 Pulse generation 10 Permeability and Channels 10.1 History 10.2 Patch clamp and black lipid membranes 10.3 Analyzing permeability data 10.4 Channel proteins 10.4.1 Poisons 10.4.2 Mutations 10.4.3 The impossibility of temperature-sensing receptors 10.5 Lipid membrane permeability 10.5.1 Lipid membrane channels 10.5.2 Pore theories 10.5.3 Dependence on the thermodynamic variables 10.5.4 The correlation between membrane properties and protein ion channel function 10.5.5 Sub-levels and power laws 11 Anesthesia 11.1 History 11.2 General anesthestics 11.3 Meyer-Overton rule 11.4 Local anesthetics 11.4.1 What is the dfference between local and general anesthetics 11.5 The action of anesthetics on membranes 11.6 The action of anesthetics on proteins 11.7 Cantor's model for the lateral pressure profile 11.8 Thermodynamics of anesthetics. 11.9 Clinical findings 12 Some observations about human diseases linked to thermodynamic variables. 13 Overview over electromechanical theory.