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Anonymous
Anonymous asked in Science & MathematicsOther - Science · 1 decade ago

where is the electricity in the human body made?

Where does the small amount of voltage that our body uses created? in the brain or in the spinal cord? or somewhere else?

7 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    In every single cell in the body. It's not a current, like you'd see in a wire, though. Rather, it's an imbalance of ions (mostly sodium, potassium, calcium and chloride ions) across the membrane of every cell. These imbalances are maintained by protein pumps and channels across the membranes.

    Muscles and nerves are specialized to take advantage of the imbalance to conduct impulses, so they have many more and much more specialized pumps and channels. When a nerve fires, the channels in the membrane open up, allowing the ions to flow through, and flipping the charge. The charge flip signals nearby channels to open up and flip their charge, which signal the next channels, and so on and so forth. This results in an impulse (called an action potential) traveling down the neuron like a row of falling dominoes, rather than like a current in a wire.

    Muscles work a little differently. Inside muscle cells, there are structures that hold onto large amounts of calcium ions. When a nerve impulse reaches a muscle, the nerve sends neurotransmitters (signal proteins) to the muscle, causing it to release its calcium into the cell. It's this calcium that triggers the contraction of muscle. If you deliver an electric shock to a muscle, it's enough to confuse the cells into contracting - but under normal conditions, the signal to contract is chemically based, rather than electrically based.

  • ?
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    The minimum current a human can feel depends on the current type (AC or DC) and frequency. A person can feel at least 1 mA (rms) of AC at 60 Hz, while at least 5 mA for DC. The current may, if it is high enough, cause tissue damage or fibrillation which leads to cardiac arrest. 60 mA of AC (rms, 60 Hz) or 300–500 mA of DC can cause fibrillation. A sustained electric shock from AC at 120 V, 60 Hz is an especially dangerous source of ventricular fibrillation because it usually exceeds the let-go threshold, while not delivering enough initial energy to propel the person away from the source. However, the potential seriousness of the shock depends on paths through the body that the currents take. Death caused by an electric shock is called electrocution.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    The electricity in the human body is made from the brain.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    the brain is made of neurones that generate small electrical pulses or signals (or is it the cerebellum that is made of neurones)

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  • 1 decade ago

    In nerves and brain cells...

  • 1 decade ago

    i dont know where its made, but it is what makes the nervous system function.

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