What term describes the all-or-none nature of neuronal firing?

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Multiple Choice

What term describes the all-or-none nature of neuronal firing?

The all-or-none nature describes how a neuron decides to fire: it either produces a full action potential or none at all. When the membrane potential hits the threshold, voltage-gated sodium channels open and a rapid depolarization occurs, followed by opening of potassium channels to repolarize and then a brief hyperpolarization before returning to rest. The spike that results has a nearly constant amplitude in a given neuron, so increasing the stimulus above threshold doesn’t make a bigger spike; it typically makes the neuron fire more often. That behavior is captured by the term All-or-None Response. Depolarization and hyperpolarization are phases of the action potential, not the rule that governs whether the spike occurs, and the hippocampus is a brain region, not the firing rule itself.

The all-or-none nature describes how a neuron decides to fire: it either produces a full action potential or none at all. When the membrane potential hits the threshold, voltage-gated sodium channels open and a rapid depolarization occurs, followed by opening of potassium channels to repolarize and then a brief hyperpolarization before returning to rest. The spike that results has a nearly constant amplitude in a given neuron, so increasing the stimulus above threshold doesn’t make a bigger spike; it typically makes the neuron fire more often. That behavior is captured by the term All-or-None Response. Depolarization and hyperpolarization are phases of the action potential, not the rule that governs whether the spike occurs, and the hippocampus is a brain region, not the firing rule itself.

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