Your study partner in your physiology class insists that axons conduct graded potentials, and that they play a vital role in production of the action potential. Do you agree or disagree? Defend your answer.
What will be an ideal response?
Your study partner is correct. This is easiest to explain in the context of the myelinated axon. Voltage-regulated ion channels, which produce the action potential, are located only at nodes of Ranvier. This means that the intervening regions do not generate action potentials. After an action potential is produced at one node, the ions diffuse from this node to the next in a decremental manner, but produce sufficient depolarization at the next node to produce an action potential there.
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What are aggregated lymphoid nodules, and where are they located?
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