Certain cells, commonly called excitable cells, are unique because of their ability to generate electrical signals. Although several types of excitable cells exist — including neurons, muscle cells, ...

An international team involving the Institute of Chemical Research, a joint centre of the University of Seville and the Spanish National Research Council, has developed a new technique that will ...

Mutated variants of a particular ion channel cause difficult-to-treat epilepsy. A study published in the journal Nature now shows that a commonly used anesthetic drug, propofol, can restore the ...

The design of new calcium channels, built bottom-up from scratch, was reported last week in Nature. "Biochemists have been studying ion channels for decades and debating about how they work for almost ...

A new study has unveiled a precise picture of how an ion channel found in most mammalian cells regulates its own function with a 'ball-and-chain' channel-plugging mechanism. The findings boost the ...

(Nanowerk Spotlight) Biological brains compute using ions, not electrons. Every signal between neurons depends on charged atoms passing through protein channels embedded in cell membranes, a system ...

A new understanding of how drugs are taken in by cells could impact the way drugs are administered to patients. In an Aug. 30 study published in Nature that details structural changes of the Transient ...

A new study has rewritten the conventionally understood evolutionary history of certain ion channels -- proteins critical for electrical signaling in the nervous system. The study shows that the ...

A new study has unveiled a precise picture of how an ion channel found in most mammalian cells regulates its own function with a “ball-and-chain” channel-plugging mechanism, according to investigators ...