News tagged with ion channels

Scientists discover 600 million-year-old origins of vision

By studying the hydra, a member of an ancient group of sea creatures that is still flourishing, scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a discovery in understanding the origins of human vision. The finding ...

Biology / Other

created Mar 11, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (20) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

How plants sense touch, gravity and other physical forces

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the bottom of plants' ability to sense touch, gravity or a nearby trellis are mechanosensitive channels, pores through the cells' plasma membrane that are opened and closed by the deformation ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 21, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Video camera that records at the speed of thought

(PhysOrg.com) -- European researchers who created an ultra-fast, extremely high-resolution video camera have enabled dozens of medical applications, including one scenario that can record 'thought' processes travelling along ...

Technology / Engineering

created Oct 12, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 0

Site for alcohol's action in the brain discovered

Alcohol's inebriating effects are familiar to everyone. But the molecular details of alcohol's impact on brain activity remain a mystery. A new study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jun 28, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 1

'Fountain of youth' steroids could protect against heart disease

(PhysOrg.com) -- A natural defence mechanism against heart disease could be switched on by steroids sold as health supplements, according to researchers at the University of Leeds.

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created May 17, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (10) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Ion channel responsible for pain identified by UB neuroscientists

University at Buffalo neuroscience researchers conducting basic research on ion channels have demonstrated a process that could have a profound therapeutic impact on pain.

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Dec 17, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Flow of potassium into cells implicated in schizophrenia

A study on schizophrenia has implicated machinery that maintains the flow of potassium in cells and revealed a potential molecular target for new treatments. Expression of a previously unknown form of a key ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created May 06, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 2

Ion channel turns ear on its head

Scientists thought they had a good model to explain how the inner ear translates vibrations in the air into sounds heard by the brain. Now, based on new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine, it looks like ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Apr 23, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Researchers find new actions of neurochemicals (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Although the tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has only 302 neurons in its entire nervous system, studies of this simple animal have significantly advanced our understanding of human ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Jul 02, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Blinking neurons give thoughts away

(PhysOrg.com) -- Electrical currents are invisible to the naked eye - at least they are when they flow through metal cables. In nerve cells, however, scientists are able to make electrical signals visible. ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created May 04, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists unlock the 'gates' on sudden cardiac death (w/ Video)

Australian researchers have come one step closer to understanding how the rhythm of the heartbeat is controlled and why many common drugs, including some antibiotics, antihistamines and anti-psychotics, can cause a potentially ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Jan 28, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (8) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Powerful fungal infection drug amphotericin kills yeast by simply binding ergosterol

With one simple experiment, University of Illinois chemists have debunked a widely held misconception about an often-prescribed drug.

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Epileptic seizures may be linked to an ancient gene family

New research points to a genetic route to understanding and treating epilepsy. Timothy Jegla, an assistant professor of biology at Penn State University, has identified an ancient gene family that plays a ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Aug 01, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Non-hormonal contraceptive a future possibility

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the Center of Advanced European Study and Research in Bonn, Germany published simultaneous papers this week in Nature which could ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Mar 17, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 3 | with audio podcast weblog

Highlight: Biofunctionalized magnetic-vortex microdiscs

Users from Argonne's Materials Science Division and University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine, working collaboratively on a user science project with CNM's Nanobio Interfaces Group, have discovered ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Dec 09, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 1

Ion channel

Ion channels are pore-forming proteins that help establish and control the small voltage gradient across the plasma membrane of all living cells (see cell potential) by allowing the flow of ions down their electrochemical gradient. They are present in the membranes that surround all biological cells. The study of ion channels is known as channelomics and involves many scientific techniques such as voltage clamp electrophysiology (in particular patch clamp), immunohistochemistry, and RT-PCR.

For more information about Ion channel, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: brain , cells , nerve cells , cell membrane