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References: The Action Potential

  1. 2.3 Principles of Bioelectricity - OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - Explains where the resting potential comes from, with a table of ion concentrations and equilibrium potentials. It is a free, college-level next step after this chapter's battery analogy.

  2. 2.4 Mechanisms of Neural Signaling - OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - Walks through the rising phase, falling phase, undershoot, and refractory period, and compares conduction speeds in myelinated and unmyelinated axons. Source for this chapter's 0.5 to 10 m/s and 150 m/s figures and the 28% energy estimate.

  3. 12.4 The Action Potential - OpenStax, Anatomy and Physiology 2e - A clear step-by-step account with the classic textbook values (rest −70 mV, threshold −55 mV, peak +30 mV), plus all-or-none firing, absolute and relative refractory periods, and saltatory conduction.

  4. 35.2 How Neurons Communicate - OpenStax, Biology 2e - Written for introductory biology students, so it is a gentle review. It gives the ion concentration table used in this chapter and the 3 Na⁺ out, 2 K⁺ in pump ratio.

  5. A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve - Hodgkin AL, Huxley AF. The Journal of Physiology, 1952 (PubMed Central) - The landmark paper that modeled the action potential in the squid giant axon. The math is advanced, but skimming the figures shows how the first quantitative model of a nerve impulse was built.

  6. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963 - NobelPrize.org - Official summary of the prize shared by John Eccles, Alan Hodgkin, and Andrew Huxley for discovering the ionic mechanisms of nerve cell excitation and inhibition.

  7. Local Anesthetics: Review of Pharmacological Considerations - Becker DE, Reed KL. Anesthesia Progress, 2012 (PubMed Central) - A dental-focused review explaining how local anesthetics act on sodium channels, why pain fibers are blocked before pressure fibers, and why epinephrine is added. Background for this chapter's Bedside case.

  8. FDA Approves Novel Non-Opioid Treatment for Moderate to Severe Acute Pain - U.S. Food and Drug Administration, January 30, 2025 - The official announcement of suzetrigine (Journavx), the first approved drug in a new class of non-opioid pain medicines that target sodium channels in peripheral pain pathways.

  9. Tetrodotoxin: The State-of-the-Art Progress in Characterization, Detection, Biosynthesis, and Transport Enrichment - Zhang X, Qiao K, Cui R, Xu M, and colleagues. Marine Drugs, 2024 (PubMed Central) - A review of the pufferfish neurotoxin: how it blocks sodium channels, what poisoning looks like, and why treatment is supportive because there is no specific antidote.

  10. Firing Messages: Ion Channels and Action Potentials - BrainFacts.org, Society for Neuroscience - A short, readable explainer on ion channels, resting potential, and threshold, useful for a quick review before a Brain Bee.