The Role of Potassium and Sodium Ions as Studied in Mammalian Brain

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the role of potassium and sodium ions as studied in mammalian brain, and examines the methods of measurement of potassium and sodium ion concentrations in mammalian brain. The mechanism for maintaining the potassium and sodium gradients across the cell membrane yields information about the genesis of the electrical activity. It is highly likely that the transmembrane potassium and sodium gradients themselves are the key “pace setters” of the biochemical mechanisms which create and maintain their gradients at such constant relative levels. Potassium and sodium in the brain also have a clinical importance in relation to the convulsive threshold, to the sodium retention during the depressive phase of manic depression, to the increased frequency of preconvulsive electroencephalographic signs during premenstrual sodium retention, and to the ionic balance following surgery. These ions may determine the rates of the enzymic and nonenzymic reactions which restore them to their own previous dynamic equilibria from which electric or chemical activity has displaced them. The chapter also discusses the methods of study of potassium and sodium in the mammalian brain, maintenance of potassium and sodium gradients in brain cells, and the interrelations of potassium and sodium and the brain's metabolism.