At a voltage-clamp step that depolarises a patch of squid axon membrane to

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Forces, Machines and Signals, Ch The nerve impulse

Problem

At a voltage-clamp step that depolarises a patch of squid axon membrane to 0 mV0\,\mathrm{mV}, the potassium activation gate's opening and closing rate constants (Hodgkin-Huxley two-state kinetics) are αn=0.55 ms−1\alpha_n = 0.55\,\mathrm{ms^{-1}} and βn=0.055 ms−1\beta_n = 0.055\,\mathrm{ms^{-1}}. Find the steady-state potassium activation n∞n_\infty and the relaxation time τn\tau_n of the gate at this voltage.

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