Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 28/02/2012 16:38:32
Title: Why does calcium indicate nerve cell health?
Post by: thedoc on 28/02/2012 16:38:32
Why do scientists use calcium as an indicator of the overall health of a nerve cell? Asked by Android Neox
Visit the webpage for the podcast in which this question is answered. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/20120226/)
Title: Why does calcium indicate nerve cell health?
Post by: thedoc on 28/02/2012 16:38:32
We answered this question on the show...
Hannah - [In the Study I referred to earlier]they were specifically looking at calcium because calcium is such an important ion involved in signalling between nerve cells. It’s important for building circuits and allowing passage of information from one nerve cell to another. And it’s particularly important for developing brains and brain activity. So they were using calcium as an indicator for the primary hippocampal cell health.