The Teorell Membrane Oscillator—a Complete Nerve Model

Abstract

The membrane oscillator discovered by T. Teorell in 1954 (10) is one of the most remarkable kinetic systems exhibiting spontaneous periodic behaviour under constant environmental conditions. It can be shown and demonstrated experimentally that the intrinsic reason for the occurrence of oscillations in the Teorell oscillator, like in other physicochemical and biological oscillatory systems, is an appropriate antagonistic action of a labilizing positive and a recovering stabilizing negative feedback. Each kind of feedback causes a group of characteristic temporal phenomena, which are observed in all oscillatory systems including the living excitable nerve such as: instability, bistability, excitability, propagation of excitation and recovery, refractoriness, abolition, accommodation etc.