Nernst Equation Lab Report

672 Words2 Pages

The purpose of this experiment was not only to test the importance of potassium in setting resting membrane potential but also to test the Nernst equation’s ability to accurately portray this. As seen in Figure 1, all but one of the experimentally derived data points were significantly different from the calculated Nernst value, that one point being at 40mM K+. All experimental values before this point were more depolarized than the Nernst equation’s predicted values, while all experimental values after this point were more hyperpolarized than the Nernst equation’s predicted values. Given that most of the p-values in Table 1 do not exceed .05. This showed that most experimentally derived values differed significantly from the Nernst equation …show more content…

The Nernst equation line in Figure 1 shows only how the change in extracellular potassium concentration can lead to a change in membrane voltage. Therefore, the other lines may be a reflection of the effects of chloride extracellular concentration changes. It is important to realize that these changes in chloride concentration also affected chloride’s reversal potential; increases in chloride’s concentration also lead to an increase in chloride’s reversal potential. Given the membrane’s slight permeability to chloride, the ion was able to more easily than other ions travel down its chemical gradient and into the cell. In the areas of the graph where the experimentally derived data points were significantly depolarized relative to the Nernst values, the chloride ion may have had a lowered driving force, given that the pipet did have a minute amount of chlorine in it that entered the intracellular environment. The point (40mM K+) at which the Nernst equation accurately showed potassium as the main ion which set this particular membrane potential, may have been caused by chloride reaching it’s reversal potential. Note that this reversal potential of about - 40mV is higher than chloride’s usual reversal potential of -70mV. At this point there is no net flow of chloride. However, the following increases in chloride concentration in the extracellular space caused for an increased driving force on chloride to enter the

More about Nernst Equation Lab Report

Open Document