action potential

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Related to Nerve signal: Neurotransmitters, axon

action potential

A momentary change in electrical potential on the surface of a cell, especially of a nerve or muscle cell, that occurs when it is stimulated, resulting in the transmission of an electrical impulse.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

action potential

(Physiology) a localized change in electrical potential, from about –70 mV to +30 mV and back again, that occurs across a nerve fibre during transmission of a nerve impulse

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ac′tion poten`tial

the change in electrical potential that occurs between the inside and outside of a nerve or muscle fiber when it is stimulated, serving to transmit nerve signals. Compare nerve impulse.

action potential

- A brief electrical signal transmitted along a nerve or muscle fiber following stimulation.

See also related terms for nerve.

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Noun

action potential - the local voltage change across the cell wall as a nerve impulse is transmitted

nerve impulse, nervous impulse, neural impulse, impulse - the electrical discharge that travels along a nerve fiber; "they demonstrated the transmission of impulses from the cortex to the hypothalamus"

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