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How is electricity generated?
Our brain sends electrical impulses to the rest of the body to perform work ie. The electrical impulses help muscular tissues to contract on expand. How does brain generate thi electrical impulse.
6 Answers
- EpidavrosLv 41 decade agoFavorite Answer
The cell membrane of the nerve cell contains what is called a proton pump. This can pump ions uphill against a concentration gradient - in other words it can create a more concentrated solution of ions on one side of the membrane (it of course uses energy to do this).
The proton pump pumps potassium ions across the membrane and creates an imbalance. Potassium ions are really tiny.
When a nerve is triggered, potassium channels open up and the membrane depolarises. This depolarisation causes the neighbouring membrane to follow suit, and the nerve signal propagates. However, once depolarised, the nerve has a recovery time - this stops it just triggering endlessly and allowing the ions to simply equalise in concentration.
The nerves outside the brain have an additional trick. They have an insulating sheath around them that breaks at nodes along the nerve cell. The membrane cannot depolarise where there is an insulating sheath, so instead the flow of ions causes a change in voltage that propagates capacitatively to the next break in the sheath. And so on. This is much faster than membrane depolarisation.
- 1 decade ago
The electrical impulses travel along nerve cells known as neurons. In order for this electrical impulse to exist there needs to be an existing potential difference. The brain contains a lot of charged molecules such as Na+ K+ Cl- .
The membranes around cells keep these molecules separated as they tend to only allow certain molecules to be transported across, hence creating a potential across the cell membrane. This potential difference provides the basis for the electrical impulse. So to answer your question the potential differences already exist and throughout the nervous system these potentials also exist allowing the impulses to travel all through through the body, eventually making a muscle contract. So depending on the actions of various chemicals in the brain such as serotonin or dopamine which binds to the receptors on cells changing the shape and hence allowing certain molecule types to flow. This itself then generates an electrical current.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
The fact is, we just don't know for certain. Some possible generation sources include: chemical, respiratory, cardiovascular, and sexual. All seem to play a part or work together. Charge is believed to be stored, but what is not certain is if it is in a capacitor or battery-type situation. All cells of the body hold a charge--even cancer cells; and we now know that there are five types of electricities in accord with the five senses. Charge perforce runs from the brain by way of the nerves and is distributed foremost by the ganglia clusters.
Source(s): Yahoo, Library of Congress, Google - 1 decade ago
Nerves work both ways -- messages are sent from the brain and spinal column outwards to our muscles, and inwards from our senses.
We aren't, however, full of batteries like a robot. Think static electricity. The insides of nerve cells are negatively charged, and the outside positively charged. Say you want to move your arm. You think about moving. Cells carry this message by electrical impulse by propogating it all the way down.
Negative and positive Ions float on the outside of a nerve cell. When they sense a charge being sent down, they change shape and in effect propgate the signal to the next cell, etc...
But no electricity is generated, and similarly no electricity is lost.
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- 1 decade ago
it isnt your brain that creates this... it is your heart believe it or not... when you see EKG (elctrocardio gram) readings, you are seing the heart's electrical production.
- 1 decade ago
_______EAS Y !!!!!!
CHEMICAL REACTION ..:)
You cannot find a simpler answer than this to score 100 /100!