IUBio

why does brain impact cause unconsciousness?

James Owens jamo at hardy.u.washington.edu
Fri Sep 24 14:10:54 EST 1993


bpaul@ (Brooke Paul) writes:

>In article <CDoFp4.5rv at ucdavis.edu> ez001932 at othello.ucdavis.edu (John M. Price) writes:
>>
>>Perhaps you should look at the old literature covering spreading
>>depression produced by the application of KCl to the exposed cortex.  This
>>seems mimic the response well.  Essentially, due to the sudden change in
>>membrane resting potential, K+ is supposed to be INSIDE the cell,
>>the cells go dormant for a time, and this depression spreads as th bolus
>>spreads through the cortex.
>>
>	Why does K+ cause this effect?  It should cause depolarization,
>right?

	My understanding is that it does indeed cause depolarization
which, in turn, produces voltage dependent inactivation of voltage gated
channels (especially sodium). This produces the "depression".

			Regards,
				Jim Owens
			jamo at u.washington.edu



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