How do EPSPs and IPSPs affect the likelihood thatsummation will result in an action potential?
How do EPSPs and IPSPs affect the likelihood that
summation will result in an action potential?
An action potential is a typical sequence of rapid increase and eventual decrease in voltage or membrane potential over a cellular membrane. Local currents transmit action potentials through the axons of neurons.
A postsynaptic neuron's summation of EPSPs and IPSPs helps it to integrate the electrical input generated by both inhibitory and excitatory synapses operating on it at any given time. The equilibrium between excitation and inhibition determines when the number of active synaptic inputs leads to the output of an action potential. The postsynaptic cell would create an action potential if the sum of both EPSPs and IPSPs resulted in a depolarization of appropriate consistency to raise the membrane potential above the threshold.
Inhibition, on the other hand, would keep the postsynaptic cell silenced. The equilibrium between EPSPs and IPSPs usually varies with time, based on the amount of excitatory and inhibitory neurons involved at any given time, as well as the magnitude of the current at each synapse.
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