In a surprising new finding, neuroscientists have shown that human neurons have a much lower density of ion channels than expected, compared to the neurons of other mammals. Ion channels produce ...

Ion channels are attractive drug targets due to their importance in health and disease, but finding ways to target a specific ion channel selectively is a major challenge. Now, researchers have ...

A study at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago published this week in the online version of Biophysical Journal proposes that bubbles may control the opening and closing of ion channels. This ...

A new study has rewritten the conventionally understood evolutionary history of certain ion channels -- proteins critical for electrical signaling in the nervous system. The study shows that the ...

Potassium channels can become nonconducting via inactivation at a gate inside the highly conserved selectivity filter (SF) region near the extracellular side of the membrane. In certain ligand-gated ...

Researchers decipher the function of an ion channel involved in cellular degradation processes and create new possibilities for Parkinson’s therapies.

Cells send electrical impulses throughout the body, but electrophysiologists struggled to tune into these signals until the patch clamp technique was developed. Although biophysicist Bernard Katz from ...

Maintenance of cardiac rhythm and pain sensation require the flow of ions across the membranes of all cells. Ion channels, which facilitate this movement, are protein assemblies that penetrate the ...

Lysosomes are the recycling centers of human cells. Larger molecules are broken down inside the membrane-enclosed vesicles. Malfunctions can lead to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's.