Medical Hypotheses
Volume 54, Issue 1 , Pages 40-46, January 2000

Electrical and chemical synaptic transmission as an interacting system

Departamento de Biologia Cellular i Anatomia Patològica, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Received 9 March 1999; accepted 19 July 1999.

Revised

Abstract 

It is proposed that presynaptic potassium efflux triggered by the nerve impulse may generate either excitatory or inhibitory responses depending on the neurotransmitter which more or less steadily impregnates the postsynaptic membrane. The jelly intersynaptic matrix may potentiate the efficiency of inoic intersynaptic signals. The synaptic vesicles are proposed to shuttle mitochondrial ATP towards the presynaptic membrane, thereby supplying the energy necessary to restore the membrane polarity after synaptic transmission. Plain structural data and currently accepted functional antecedents appear to justify the proposal.

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PII: S0306-9877(99)90966-0

doi:10.1054/mehy.1999.0966

Medical Hypotheses
Volume 54, Issue 1 , Pages 40-46, January 2000

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