Identification of the pace-maker current in frog atrium

Abstract

1. The nature and interactions of the membrane currents underlying induced pace-maker activity in frog atrial muscle have been investigated using a double sucrose gap technique. 2. The membrane current which controls the speed of the atrial pacemaker depolarization (the pace-maker current, ip), is shown to be an outward current activated within the plateau potential range of a normal action potential. The subsequent deactivation of ip at more negative potentials unmasks the depolarizing action of time-independent inward membrane currents so that a pace-maker potential can result. 3. The deactivation of ip over a limited potential range (between about -30 and -60 mV) can be reliably recorded by switching on the voltage clamp during an induced pace-maker depolarization. 4. Investigation of the time and voltage-dependent behaviour of ip over a much wider potential range is less straightforward. How ip can be separated from other components of outward current present in the decay tails following square voltage clamp depolarizations is described. 5. The majority of such current decay tails contain three components of outward current. It appears that two of these components, one of which is ip, are true Hodgkin-Huxley conductance systems chiefly carrying potassium ions. 6. The nature of the third current, which decays very slowly at moderate membrane potentials (about -40 mV), is discussed and reasons are briefly given for considering it to result from the accumulation of potassium ions in extracellular spaces. Preliminary evidence that potassium depletion occurs at potentials negative to the resting potential of the trabeculum is also presented. 7. Because of the obvious complexities involved, a quantitative analysis of the atrial outward currents is not attempted here but forms the subject of a following paper (Brown, Clark & Noble, 1976a).