A THERMODYNAMIC MECHANISM BEHIND AN ACTION POTENTIAL AND BEHIND ANESTHESIA

It has been proposed that an action potential going through a nerve cell is not merely an electrochemical phenomenon, but also involves a traveling wave of compression and par-tial freezing of the lipid bilayer membrane. Below we present the results of experiments that are intended to discriminate between the electrochemical and the thermodynamic mechanism. We find that a nerve that is affected by an anesthetic can nevertheless reach the same compound action potential as an unaffected nerve when it receives a higher stimulus voltage. The result is hard to reconcile with the electrochemical Hodgkin– Huxley model and consistent with the thermodynamic mechanism