What did Hodgkin and Huxley discover?

Hodgkin and Huxley’s work with the giant squid axon was the first to use mathematical models to represent biological systems. Due to Hodgkin and Huxley’s findings, we are able to understand how an action potential propagates along a nerve and the functions of their associated ion channels.

Who were Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley?

Alan Hodgkin

Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin OM KBE PRS
Alma mater University of Cambridge
Known for Hodgkin cycle Hodgkin–Huxley model Hodgkin–Huxley sodium channels Goldman–Hodgkin–Katz flux equation Goldman–Hodgkin–Katz voltage equation
Spouse(s) Marion Rous
Children Sarah, Deborah, Jonathan Hodgkin, and Rachel

What was groundbreaking about the work of Hodgkin and Huxley?

The Hodgkin–Huxley equation Hodgkin and Huxley solved their mathematical model for both stationary and propagating action potentials using what might best be described as a ‘brute force’ method.

Why is the Hodgkin Huxley model important?

The Hodgkin–Huxley model is regarded as one of the great achievements of 20th-century biophysics. Nevertheless, modern Hodgkin–Huxley-type models have been extended in several important ways: Additional ion channel populations have been incorporated based on experimental data.

How did Hodgkin and Huxley contribute to the understanding of how an action potential is generated?

Hodgkin and Huxley used the voltage clamp while also manipulating the levels of different ions in the extracellular fluid. In this way they were able to determine the exact contribution of sodium and potassium (and chloride and organic) ions to the action potential.

What is Hodgkin’s experiment?

Hodgkin and Huxley (222) performed experiments on the giant axon of the squid and found three different types of ion current, viz., sodium, potassium, and a leak current that consists mainly of Cl- ions.

What did Hodgkin and Huxley win the Nobel Prize for?

Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley, English physiologist, shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with two other physiologists, John Eccles (1903- ) and Allan Hodgkin (1914- ), for their discoveries of the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve …

What did Alan Hodgkin do?

Sir Alan Hodgkin, in full Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, (born February 5, 1914, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England—died December 20, 1998, Cambridge), English physiologist and biophysicist, who received (with Andrew Fielding Huxley and Sir John Eccles) the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the …

What are the three channels described in Hodgkin-Huxley model?

The basic scheme of single compartment models is shown in Figure C. 1-1 [1]. For Hodgkin-Huxley model, the types of channels considered include sodium, potassium, and leakage [3]. Each ion channel is selective to specific type of ion.

What does the variable H refer to in the equations presented by Hodgkins and Huxley?

The Hodgkin-Huxley equations which describe the opening and closing of ion channels with deterministic equations for the variables m, h, and n, correspond to the current density through a hypothetical, extremely large patch of membrane containing an infinite number of channels or, alternatively, to the current through …

What did Huxley discover?

Huxley, Alan Hodgkin and John Eccles jointly won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane”.

Where did Hodgkin and Huxley perform their experiments on the giant axon of the squid?

A ground-breaking experiment undertaken at the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association by Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley helped launch a golden era of neurobiology. In July 1939 the pair travelled from Cambridge University to Plymouth to work on the giant nerve fibre of the squid Loligo.