I'm 6 months into a biology degree, so at this stage, I have only a
fairly rudementary neurology knowledge. We've covered, for example,
crickets' motor timing neurons, and I understand the basic idea behind
recursive amacrine cells for motion detecton in the visual system.
I can envisage a very fast biological timing mechanism based on the speed
of axonal conduction, but many functions, for example the basic walking
pattern of an animal, must require timed intervals in the region of 300ms
which could not be explained by the speed of an AP.
In electronics, there are two main ways of achieving such intervals,
either a capacitor charging up through a resistor, or an oscillator linked
with a counter.
What is the biological equivalent?
Thanks,
Tony
TonyJeffs
Liverpool
UK
