On the distribution of spontaneous potentials intervals in nervous transmission

Abstract

One of the main challenges in Biophysics teaching consists on how to motivate students to appreciate the beauty of theoretical formulations. This is crucial when the system modeling requires numerical calculations to achieve realistic results. In this sense, due to the massive use of software, students often become a mere users of computational tools without capturing the essence of formulation and further problem solution. It is, therefore, necessary for instructors to find innovating ways, allowing students developing of their ability to deal with mathematical modelling. To address this issue one can highlight the use of Benford's law, thanks to its simple formulation, easy computational implementation and wide possibility for applications. Indeed, this law enables students to carry out their own data analysis with use of free software packages. This law is among the several power or scaling laws found in biological systems. However, to the best of our knowledge, this law has not been contemplated in Cell Biophysics yet. Beyond its vast applications in many fields, neuromuscular junction represents a remarkable substrate for learning and teaching of complex system. Thus, in this work, we applied both classical and a generalized form of Benford's Law, to examine if electrophysiological data recorded from neuromuscular junction conforms the anomalous number law. The results indicated that nerve-muscle communications conform the generalized Benford's law better than the seminal formulation. From our electrophysiological measurements a biological scenario is used to interpret the theoretical analysis.