The Physical Interpretation of Mathematical Models for Sodium Permeability Changes in Excitable Membranes

Abstract

This paper deals with the physical interpretation of existing mathematical models which describe the transient sodium conductance changes in excitable membranes. It is shown that there are clear limitations to the specificity of inferences which may be drawn about physical mechanism from the behavior of abstract models. Within these limitations, it is shown that a pronounced inactivation shift is not necessarily evidence for coupling between the events responsible for the rise and inactivation of the sodium conductance, but that the inactivation shift may be associated with an event whose rate explicitly depends on the rate of continuous voltage change or magnitude of instantaneous voltage change.