The Neuron and the Nerve Impulse

Name: The Neuron and the Nerve Impulse
Author: StemPy Lab

How is a message made in a nerve cell, and how does it cross to the next one? You build a neuron, read the voltage of its membrane at rest and during an impulse, and see why a coat of myelin makes a message faster. It serves the Indian syllabus (NCERT, NEET) and the matching topic of A-Level, IB and AP.

3 lessons, about 1 h 40 min4 simulations10 problems3 practice questionsPython in every lesson

Created by StemPy Lab

Course outline (3 lessons)

Lesson 1about 35 min
The nervous system and the neuron
The nervous system carries messages as electrical signals. In humans it has a central part, the brain and the spinal cord, and a peripheral part, the nerves. The nerve cell, or neuron, is its working unit. It has a cell body, short dendrites and a long axon, and some axons are wrapped in a sheath of myelin.
1 simulation1 practice question1 Python program3 problems
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Lesson 2about 35 min
Resting potential and action potential
A resting neuron is polarised. Its membrane is far more permeable to potassium than to sodium, and a pump keeps sodium out and potassium in, so the outside is positive and the inside is negative. A stimulus opens sodium channels and the polarity reverses. This is the action potential, which is the nerve impulse. Potassium then leaves and the resting potential returns.
2 simulations1 practice question1 Python program4 problems1 Python lab
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Lesson 3about 30 min
Conduction of the impulse and the synapse
An impulse moves along an axon because a site that has fired makes a current that fires the site ahead. In a myelinated fibre, the impulse jumps from node to node and is much faster. At the end of the axon the signal crosses a synapse. At an electrical synapse the current passes directly. At a chemical synapse neurotransmitters cross the cleft and may excite or inhibit the next neuron.
1 simulation1 practice question1 Python program3 problems1 Python lab1 question set1 note
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The Neuron and the Impulse: Timed Test

20 questions · 15 min

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The Neuron and the Nerve Impulse

Course outline (3 lessons)

The nervous system and the neuron

Resting potential and action potential

Conduction of the impulse and the synapse

Test Your Learning

Your teacher

Discussion (0)