Activation kinetics of the sodium and potassium conductances were re-examined in fresh axons of Loligoforbesi exhibiting very little if any potassium accumulation and a very small leak conductance, special attention being paid to the initial lag phase which precedes the turning-on of the conductances. The axons were kept intact and voltage-clamped at 2-3 °C.
In all cases, the rising phase of the currents could be fitted with very good accuracy using the Hodgkin-Huxley (1952) equations although, in most cases, the turning-on of the conductance did not coincide with the beginning of the depolarizing test pulse. The delay which separates the change in potential and the turning-on of current (the activation delay) was analyzed quantitatively for different prepulse and pulse potentials. The measured activation delay differed significantly from the delay predicted by the original HH equations. This difference (the 'non-HH delay') varied with prepulse and pulse potentials. For the potassium current, the relationship between the non-HH delay and pulse potential for a constant prepulse was bell shaped, the maximum value (0.7 ms for a prepulse to -80 mV) being reached for about 0 inV. For this same current, the relationship between the non-HH delay and the prepulse potential for a constant pulse potential was sigmoidal, starting from a minimum value of around 0.5 ms at -100 mV and rising to 5 ms at -15 mV. Essentially similar results were obtained for the sodium current although the non-HH delay was three to five times smaller and the dependency upon prepulse potential not significant. These results are in agreement with previous observations on squid axons and frog nodes of Ranvier and suggest that the opening of an ionic channel is preceded by a short but essential voltage-dependent conformational change of the channel protein.