Did you guys know that electrical impulses on nerves are weird?!
So, in case you've never noticed, our nerves are not simple copper wires.
Copper wires transport electrons along the metal's conduction band which works really well.
Nerves, on the other hand sort of lack in metal, so there's no conduction band for electrons to move.
What happens then is that in and around each nerve fiber you have ions... can't remember exactly which, but I think sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+)... and some others...
They're aligned along the nerve and, as one moves from the inside of the nerve to the outside, the ion next to it will also move to the outside, and the next, and the next, and so on until the last ion moves out, delivering its electrical signal to the next bunch of nerves...
The more ions that move at one particular location, the more intense is the "signal"...
bah... who am I kidding, let me look at the wiki... it knows...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential
![[Image: 300px-Action_Potential.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=upload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F9%2F95%2FAction_Potential.gif%2F300px-Action_Potential.gif)
So, in case you've never noticed, our nerves are not simple copper wires.
Copper wires transport electrons along the metal's conduction band which works really well.
Nerves, on the other hand sort of lack in metal, so there's no conduction band for electrons to move.
What happens then is that in and around each nerve fiber you have ions... can't remember exactly which, but I think sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+)... and some others...
They're aligned along the nerve and, as one moves from the inside of the nerve to the outside, the ion next to it will also move to the outside, and the next, and the next, and so on until the last ion moves out, delivering its electrical signal to the next bunch of nerves...
The more ions that move at one particular location, the more intense is the "signal"...
bah... who am I kidding, let me look at the wiki... it knows...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential
