Neurophysiology – lecture 1

January 6, 2011

1 General information about the course

1. Instructor: Dave Wood
2. Graduate TA: Shuang Li
3. Undergraduate TA: Zach Mace
4. Lectures: 11:00AM - 12:15 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays Recitations: 11:00 - 11:50 AM on Wednes-
days in Langley 221 4:00 - 5:00 PM on Thursdays; room to be announced
5. Lecture outlines will be fairly extensive and be posted on CourseWeb. It is suggested that these outlines
be printed off and included in a 3 ring notebook to generate a fairly complete record of the course.
6. At the beginning of each lecture xeroxed copies of the diagrams and illustrations to be used during the
course of the lecture will be made available on the desk at the front of the room. These sheets will be
prepunched for incorporation into the course 3 ring notebook.
7. Textbooks are as listed in the Course Outline and will be available in the Langley Library.
8. The course will be oriented toward the solution of problems which involve the analysis of neural function
using the principles developed in electricity. All of the electrical principles needed to understand neural
functioning will be presented in class and the way in which they can be applied to neural functioning will
be indicated. Past experience shows that students do not have must trouble learning these principles
but do have considerable difficulty in recognizing how these principles apply to biological tissues. The
best way to overcome this difficulty is to practice in making such applications repetitively! Therefore
there will be a set of problems given out each Thursday. The answers to these problems are to be
turned in on the following Thursday. They will be graded and returned to the students by the following
Tuesday.
9. The collective grade on the problem sets will constitute 1 credit toward the final grade.
10. Each of 2 Hour Test grades will constitute 1 credit toward the final grade.
11. The Final Exam will constitute 2 credits toward the final grade.
12. The final grade will be based on the best 4 grades among these 5 credits.
13. You are encouraged to ask questions about anything you do not immediately understand or to obtain
relevant information. You can do this during lectures, during a recitation period, during office hours
or by emailing the instructor.

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2 Why is Neurophysiology a required course for a Neuroscience
major?
1. The BRAIN is the organ controlling our sensory world and our behavior.
(a) The brain receives all sensory input as electrical activity propagated along sensory axons.
(b) The brain produces electrical activity conducted along motor axons to produce behaviors. This
fact led the early 20th century neuroscientist Sherrington to refer to the axons in the peripheral
nerves as the Final Common Pathway.
(c) Thus nearly all inputs and outputs to and from the brain are dependent on electrical activity.
(d) Even most drugs and hormones act by altering the electrical activity of neurons.
(e) Therefore, to understand how the brain functions one must understand how this electrical activity
is produced and controlled.
2. The model which describes how electrical activity in the nervous system is generated and controlled is
very general in its applicability.
(a) The basic model applies not only to nervous system functioning but also to the processes which
underlie skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscle functioning and to the functioning of endocrine and
exocrine glands.
(b) Within neural tissue this basic model explains resting potentials, action potentials, synaptic po-
tentials, receptor potentials, and pacemaker potentials.
3. Levels of Analysis
(a) Some texts follow a “reductionist” path in describing neural function, as shown below:
function → function → function of → function of
of parts of of entire cells systems of
molecules molecules cells
(b) Historically, research has developed in the opposite sequence:
analysis of → analysis of → analysis of
neural systems cellular function molecular structures

prior to the 1950’s after 1940’s after 1980’s

due to stains due to the development of due to the development of
and lesion studies microelectrodes and the patch clamp
oscilloscopes
(c) In this course we will employ the sequence described under 1) above. The principles that apply
to the biological situation are clearer following this sequence and therefore the material should be
easier to assimilate. However, the conceptualization behind the many discoveries that have been
made is unfortunately lost when this sequence of description is employed.
4. Use of Analogies!
(a) You are all familiar with literary analogies, e.g., boy is to girl as man is to —–.
(b) In such an analogy there is a similar relation between the 2 parts of the analogy - part 1 is like
part 2.
(c) Scientific analogies have a more demanding definition. The 2 parts or processes must obey the
same mathematical laws.

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 For example, for the field effect of gravity, Force between 2 masses (Newton’s Law of Gravity)
m1 · m2
F =G· (1)
r2

for the field effect of charged bodies, Force between the 2 bodies (Coulomb’s Law)
q1 · q2
F = ke · (2)
r2

These two laws of physics are in the same form and therefore the field effect of gravity and the
field effect of electrical charge are analogous. This is advantageous to know because it means you
can study the field effects of gravity with streams of flowing water or rolling marbles or anything
else that you can easily see and infer that electrical fields will produce the same kinds of forces
and movements. And it’s a lot easier to study and comprehend gravitational fields.
(d) In this course we will use 2 levels of analogy:
i. Cells bounded by membranes are analogous to the simple electrical circuit drawn on the board
at the end of class. Since the laws governing electricity are known we can understand the way
the cell works through those laws.
ii. However, voltages, resistors, capacitors, etc. may not be familiar and hence these electrical
laws may be hard to interpret and apply. So we will employ a second analogy that which
draws an analogy between current flow in a hydraulic system and current flow in an electrical
system. This analogy will be used assuming it is much easier to comprehend the movement
of a volume of fluid that can be seen than it is to comprehend the movement of a certain
amount of charge which cannot be seen.