Action potentials: Summing up the effect of loads of ion channels

Abstract

In this final chapter we will use the theoretical drugs developed in various chapters above for whole cell simulations. So far we have studied very small parts of a cell. We started by studying the dynamics going on in a single dyad; see Fig. 2.1 The size of one dyad is less than 1/1,000 μm3[3] and we have been concerned with the concentration of calcium ions in this small volume. We have also studied the voltage dynamics in the vicinity of a single ion channel. The size of a single channel is about 1 nm. Now we address what is going on in a whole cell and it is important to realize that, compared to the single dyad and the single ion channel, the whole cell is huge; a normal ventricular cell is about 30,000 μm3 [3], or on the order of 30 million times larger than the single dyad.