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

Exercise 6

The All-or-None Response of Membrane Excitation. A nerve cell membrane exhibits an all-or-none response to excitation; that is, the magnitude of the response is independent of the magnitude of the stimulus, once a threshold value is exceeded.
(a)Explain in your own words why this is so.
(b)If every neuron exhibits an all-or-none response, how do you suppose the nervous system of an animal can distinguish different intensities of stimulation How do you think your own nervous system can tell the difference between a warm iron and a hot iron or between a chamber orchestra and a rock band