Proper Understanding of the Neurons as Generators of electric Power and Potential of the Nerve Impulses

Abstract Measuring an induced magnetic field by the flow of electric charges through axons and understanding the neuroscientific definition of the flow of nerve impulses through axons as electric signals led to introduce the Volume Conduction (VC) model that defines the axons as electric conductors. According to a new definition of the electric charges as electromagnetic (EM) waves that have an electric potential, we modify in the present study the VC model by a definition of the nature of the nerve impulses as electric charges. In previous studies were recorded the brain waves as EM waves and brain’s consumption of the body’s metabolic heat was estimated as 20% while its mass is less 2% of the human body. According to such results, we concluded the brain neurons are acting as generators of the charge of the nerve impulses which consumes the metabolic heat and emitted EM waves from the brain. This conclusion confirms the nature of the nerve impulses as EM waves and found a source of the flowing energy through axons as electric charges. Recognizing a difference of temperatures and the Seebeck coefficients across the neuron’s membrane, we found the neurons are also acting as thermos- cells that convert their metabolic heat into electric charges through a series of thermo-electrochemical processes by involving the found transmembrane temperature difference and Seebeck effect. The measured transmembrane potential can be plausibly explained by accumulations of the potentials of the generated nerve impulses which are defined as electric charges that have electric potential. The neuron’s power is directly calculated as the product of the generated membrane’s potential times the measured rate of entropy growth through axons by Ammeters. Such proper understanding of the generated neuron’s power improves a traditional hypothesis of ATP synthesis that explains generation of electrochemical signals, ignores the flow of nerve impulses as electric energy, and violates laws of thermodynamics.