Hi Tera,

Do you mean increasing/decreasing extracellular and intracellular K+ at the same time? Or like these kind of cases?

1. Increasing extracellular K+
2. Decreasing extracellular K+
3. Increasing intracellular K+
4. Decreasing intracellular K+

Please let me know,

Thanks,

Katt

Hi Tera,

I've attached some mathematical reasoning to show the cases for K+ here: https://alumniubcca-my.s...-uChscHBInlUSxw?e=yvpbTP

For this, I also found these questions historically confusing when I was learning this subject.

I think a lot of the confusion comes from the wording of questions like 125 in the EK exam for lecture 6, where the statement asks what will lower membrane potential -

When a question says lower membrane potential, a lot of the time they mean abolishing the gradient and therefore the potential - that is returning it to zero, not making it more negative. I personally don't like the wording as I feel it can get confusing (as different people refer to it in different ways in my experience), but I just recall that -/+ just represents the ion flow direction, and lower usually just means in terms of absolute value.

I hope this helps, please let me know if anything needs clarification.

Thanks,

Katt