EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE UPON THE RECOVERY COURSE FROM EXCITATION

EXPERIMENTS WITH ELECTROCHEMICAL MODEL OF EXCITATION

Abstract

To know effects of temperature upon the duration of action potential, time for recovery, and each phase of it, experiments were carried out with the Yamagiwa-Lillie' s and the Akiyama' s model, consisting of iron wire immersed in nitric acid, and potential changes in these models were recorded with an oscillograph. The results were as follows :
1) In general, the duration of action potential and time necessary for recovery became shorter with rise in temperature, regardless of the kind of the model. 2) However, in experiments with the Akiyama's model with varying concentrations of AgNO and HNO, there was found an optimal temperature in which the recovery proceeded most rapidly. 3) Effect of temperature was most remarkable in the second phase of recovery, and it was elucidated that the prolongation of the duration of action potential was mainly due to that of this phase.
From these results it was concluded as follows : 1) On the progress of the recovery, chemical reaction would have important bearing than in eliciting excitation. 2) This chemical reaction would not be a simple one, because in that case the time for the recovery would show lineal decline with rise in temperature, which however was proved not always to be the case; but it would consist of antagonistic two reactions stimulating and the membrane-forming action, that is, recovering power, because it was confirmed in the present experiments that there was a maximum point at a certain temperature in which the recovery progressed most rapidly.