The Core Equation Of Neuroscience

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My name is Artem, I'm a graduate student at NYU Center for Neural Science and researcher at Flatiron Institute (Center for Computational Neuroscience).

In this video, we explore the Nobel Prize-winning Hodgkin-Huxley model, the foundational equation of computational neuroscience that reveals how neurons generate electrical signals. We break down the biophysical principles of neural computation, from membrane voltage to ion channels, showing how mathematical equations capture the elegant dance of charged particles that enables information processing.

Outline:
00:00 Introduction
01:28 Membrane Voltage
04:56 Action Potential Overview
6:24 Equilibrium potential and driving force
10:11 Voltage-dependent conductance
16:50 Review
20:09 Limitations & Outlook
22:44 Outro

References:

This video was sponsored by Brilliant

[kikumayumi]

Dude is doing god's work for med students out here with peak motion graphics and simple descriptions

[malapropia]

as someone who has been trying to understand differences in cognition due to chloride ion channel differences (KCC2 related autism and epilepsy), this is THE BEST. I’ve basically been looking for exactly this explanation for over a year. This is really, really important information.

[Tom-spgy]

You summarized almost an entire term of my computational neuroscience masters program in under a half hour!!! And that too so beautifully!

[cycla]

as a statistics major, I dont' usually watch these videos but it warms my heart there are so many scientifically minded people in the world

[xyzct]

So I have a physics degree, but no neurophysiology background. This presentation was so clear that I found it almost trivially easy to follow. Well done!

[Clockworkbio]

I did a whole giant deep dive video about Rhodopson and the chemical pathway for photo transduction. The whole time, I was slamming my head against the wall trying to figure out a way to communicate the neural side of that equation. Gave up and focused on the biochem. This video absolutely knocked the answer OUT OF THE PARK. So good.

[tau]

I'm often scared to click on your videos, because I know they will demand my full attention, otherwise I get overwhelmed and frustrated...

But by Jove is it satisfying to do it right and get rewarded with a new shade in the beauty of the universe!

[alvarosiegar]

I’m not usually commenting YouTube videos, but after watching a few of yours, i feel the urge to say that your ability to bring down to Earth such tricky topics, together with those beautiful visuals, is just inspiring. Amazing work, just keep going. Greetings from Spain 🇪🇸

[shovnikpaul]

As someone with an electrical engineering background, some of this stuff was surprisingly intuitive for me to grasp (like the lowkey KCL equation at 4:36, the idea of modelling non-electrical problems as electrical engineering problems by drawing an equivalent circuit, the voltage controlled sodium/potassium channels basically being analogous to transistors, specifically n-channel mosfets where the conductive channel grows in response to an applied gate voltage, the statistical modelling of diffusion and drift currents at 6:36 like its done in basic semiconductor theory, to mention a few). Also worth mentioning is that the probabily of mutliple gates being simultaneously permissive is nothing but the multiplication theorem in probabilty assuming the gates being in permissive states are independent events. I'm blown away. Love your enthusiasm and the high quality of your production. Keep it up!

Edit: im just curious if the logical next step is to model our brains network of neurons as electrical circuits, with all of this being established? I could be wrong but im really curious to see how far we can go with this model.

[mekafinchi]

This has some amusing timing for me! I'm taking a class on multiple processor systems, and for an assignment we were given a piece of code that simulates a neuron using the Hodgkin-Huxley model and tasked with parallelizing it with MPI and running some experiments on a cluster. We didn't need to touch the inner workings of the model (we parallelized computing independent dendrites), but it's still a fun coincidence

[kgblankinship]

Excellent, to-the-point explanation. I wondered where these differential equations came from - what they describe. Now I know. Kudos to Kirsanov.

[Zhdhcjen]

I just want to tell you, I’ve found your channel a year ago, and I’m going to do an md/phd, but I didn’t know what to do my bachelor since I am from Germany. Now I finally decided thanks to you, thanks to Iain McGilchrist, thanks to Dostoevsky and Karl Deisseroth to study Brain Science in the Netherlands, focusing on mathematical neuroscience. It won’t be easy for me, but I just love it already and I just want to know where consciousness comes from, where dreams come from, so on and so forth. Thanks again.

[beluwhaleoftheisland]

This video is soo good. I have been trying to understand these mechanics for the past few days. But the textbooks I have been reading assumes that the reader understands these basic physics concepts. I was wandering here and there not knowing where to learn those physics concepts until I stumbled upon your 20 minute video that explains everything perfectly.

[AlvaroALorite]

The value that these videos add to the public is astonishing! Thank you Artem

[onebronx]

5:20 -- it worth noting that the membrane potential is negative at rest and the voltage rising equates to decrease of the potential difference (hence depolarization). The graph confusingly places the horizontal axis below the chart, making an impression that the zero is below and the voltage rise causes increase of polarization.

[CoolGameKanaal]

Interpreting then compiling this information takes a special type of mind, but you make it easy for us. Much appreciated Artem!

[JackDespero]

I am not a medical doctor, but I found this very interesting. Thank you for the clear explanation.

[patentpendulum]

Thank you for this amazing explanation. Your explanation literally helped me to abstract the mathematical model for my PhD proposal. I will never forget this.😮

[Lauracastro]

As a medical student who loves and misses a lot mathematical thinking and is gravitated towards research and this kind of rationale, this video was a true delight to watch

[sachitsharma]

God bless the calsequestrin that got inhibited to release calcium ions which made conformational changes to troponin that made the lumbricals and interosse work and write the algorithm that recommended this video to me with the help of prefrontal cortex and the motor cortex area in the parietal lobe that recommended this video to me, special thanks to all the ions and energy sources .