Sciatic Nerve Lab Report

Introduction

A nerve is an enclosed bundle of axons found in the peripheral nervous system (Easton 13). It is the pathway for electrochemical nerve impulses, which pass along axons of the peripheral organs. A neuron is a cell in the nervous system which plays many critical tasks like receiving sensory signals from the external and internal environments. Moreover, neurons join together these sensory responses to produce and transmit motor responses as a result of changes in membrane permeability of certain ions due to the sensory stimulus. The sciatic nerve is the most important nerve that located in spinal cord through the thigh. The sciatic nerve has many nerve fibers or axons allowing the examination of the action potentials through the movements of the nerve. The sciatic nerve axons are different in structure and function. Axons with large diameter perform action potentials faster than axons with small diameter. The sciatic nerve has a lot of properties that make it to be a good candidate for this
The absolute refractory period is known as unresponsiveness period because second action potential cannot be generated as a result of the inactivation of Na+ gated voltage channel, and it is during repolarization and hyperpolarization. Relative refractory period is kind of the later period, and second AP can be generated with strong stimulus during this period. The absolute refractory period is seen because the two stimuli are close to each other. Since the sciatic nerve under investigation is a collection of individual neurons, it is also graded in its response. The best approach for measuring is to look at the difference between two stimulations of different time intervals. The relative refractory period can be concluded throughout the shortest interval between two impulses (Kopec et al