Becker's World of the Cell 9th Edition by Lewis Kleinsmith, Jeff Hardin, Gregory Paul Bertoni

Exercise 2

The Resting Membrane Potential. The Goldman equation is used to calculate Vm, the resting potential of a biological membrane. As presented in the chapter, this equation contains terms for sodium, potassium, and chloride ions only.
(a)Why do only these three ions appear in the Goldman equation as it applies to nerve impulse transmission
(b)Suggest a more general formulation for the Goldman equation that would be applicable to membranes that might be selectively permeable to other monovalent ions as well.
(c)How much would the resting potential of the membrane change if the relative permeability for sodium ions were 1.0 instead of 0.01
(d)Would you expect a plot of V m versus the relative permeability of the membrane to sodium to be linear Why or why not