Four sources of electrical noise in biological membranes, each with a different physical basis, are discussed; the analysis of each type of noise potentially yields a different sort of information about membrane properties. (a) From the thermal noise spectrum, the passive membrane impedance may be obtained, so that thermal noise measurements are essentially equivalent to the type of since wave analysis carried out by Cole and Curtis. (b) If adequately high frequency measurements could be made, the shot noise spectrum should give information about the average motion of a single ion within the membrane. (c) The number of charge carriers and single ion mobilities within the membrane can possibly be inferred from measurements of noise with a 1/f spectrum. Available data indicate, for example, that increases in axon membrane conductance are not achieved by modulations in the mobility of ions within the membrane. (d) Fluctuations arising from the mechanisms normally responsible for membrane conductance changes can produce a type of electrical noise. Analysis of such conductance fluctuations provides a way to assess the validity of various microscopic models for the behavior of individual channels. Two different probabilistic interpretations of the Hodgkin-Huxley equations are investigated here and shown to yield different predictions about the spectrum of conductance fluctuations; thus, appropriate noise measurements may serve to eliminate certain classes of microscopic models for membrane conductance changes. Further, it is shown how the analysis of conductance fluctuations can, in some circumstances, provide an estimate of the conductance of a single channel.
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