Indicatively, and with a certain margin of approximation that takes into account the variability of the different types of axons and the various animal structures, an axon has a radius of the order of μμ, an internal resistance per unit of length ri ~ 1010 Ω/m and a transmembrane resistance per unit of length rm ~ 104 Ω/m. The thickness of the membrane is about 10-8 m and the relative dielectric constant of about 3.

  1. Choose a capacitor model and its capacitance and estimate with this data the order of magnitude of the capacitance per unit axon length; (one capacity per meter cm ~ 5∙10 cm-8 F/m)
  2. Verifies that the approximations used in the exploratory part are legitimate and calculates the time and space constant;
  3. It then estimates the propagation speed of the electrical signal and compares the results obtained with the experimental data;
  4. Why is the propagation rate different from the experimental results? How can we improve the model to obtain propagation speeds closer to the real ones?