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Authors: Andrew Koob
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the neocortex of rats and cause calcium influx. The known behavior of calcium as a cell regulator of communication gave pause to researchers. The year after Kuffler’s research on glia, calcium was shown as necessary at the synapse in neurons to release transmitters.
Like sodium and potassium, calcium is also a prevalent oceanic ion and likely had an active role in the original formation of life. Although it was shown that extracellular sodium and intracellular potassium conduct an electrical pulse down a nerve, calcium wasn’t believed to be biologically relevant until 1883. Like most research in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries (and Kuffler’s lab), the story centers on the poor torture of frogs. Sydney Ringer (1836–1910) discovered that a dissected frog heart suspended in sodium would stop beating. When suspended in a blood mixture, the heart would continue to beat. But after removing the blood and then adding a saline solution, it would stop, first growing weaker and then halting after 20 minutes. After this time period, the heart would also not respond to strong shocks.
Adding potassium chloride or bicarbonate of soda to the saline solution would not help the heart to beat. However, when adding calcium, Ringer found the heartbeat could be maintained for four hours. Like most major biological leaps, his discovery occurred completely by accident. Ringer had his student prepare the mixture and instead of using distilled water, the student mistakenly used tap water. When Ringer discovered the calcium element in London tap water was equivalent to the amount of calcium circulating in our blood, he was able to perform the famous experiment.
The emphasis on sodium until that point was largely for obvious reasons. When we go to a lake and take a swim, we taste the cool fresh water that sometimes stimulates our thirst, but if you take a person from the middle of the United States, and put him on a beach in California, he might get the urge to go swimming in the ocean. If you don’t tell him what will happen when he tastes the water, he will come up spitting and gagging because of the massive salt content. However, we don’t taste calcium. In fact, we are incapable of tasting calcium. Sodium is the ion that is transmitted on our taste buds, and it was believed to be the most important ion because of its domination of the oceans. But sodium is tame compared to calcium.
Calcium highly reacts with the elements nitrogen and oxygen and the water molecule, which are prevalent in nature. It is speculated that the control of this abundant highly reactive molecule is integral to life. In the environment, calcium is mainly combined with chloride and carbon or other anions (negatively charged ions, which have more
electrons
in their
electron shells
than they have
protons
in their
nuclei
) in the form of a salt. Like a game of Tetris, the volatile calcium ions are stacked together to create organism structure. In bones and teeth, it is deposited as calcium phosphate. Seashells are mainly calcium carbonate.
Life apparently started on this planet about four billion years ago. As multicellular organisms evolved, calcium signaling and communication is believed to be the way cells were able to control other cells and themselves. The evidence for the role of calcium in the organism was left as footprints in the form of fossilized bones.
All beings today use calcium as a cellular regulator in all bodily organs. Calcium is extremely important in development. When an egg is fertilized, a calcium wave through the ovum initiates conception. Cellular development and division are calcium-dependent processes. Without calcium, an embryo will not develop properly and die. High concentrations of calcium are in a mother’s milk (among many other things).
In plants, calcium activity contributes in a similar manner. Root growth is stunted and useless if calcium is not present. In animals and plants, cell interaction and adhesion to each other,
Like sodium and potassium, calcium is also a prevalent oceanic ion and likely had an active role in the original formation of life. Although it was shown that extracellular sodium and intracellular potassium conduct an electrical pulse down a nerve, calcium wasn’t believed to be biologically relevant until 1883. Like most research in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries (and Kuffler’s lab), the story centers on the poor torture of frogs. Sydney Ringer (1836–1910) discovered that a dissected frog heart suspended in sodium would stop beating. When suspended in a blood mixture, the heart would continue to beat. But after removing the blood and then adding a saline solution, it would stop, first growing weaker and then halting after 20 minutes. After this time period, the heart would also not respond to strong shocks.
Adding potassium chloride or bicarbonate of soda to the saline solution would not help the heart to beat. However, when adding calcium, Ringer found the heartbeat could be maintained for four hours. Like most major biological leaps, his discovery occurred completely by accident. Ringer had his student prepare the mixture and instead of using distilled water, the student mistakenly used tap water. When Ringer discovered the calcium element in London tap water was equivalent to the amount of calcium circulating in our blood, he was able to perform the famous experiment.
The emphasis on sodium until that point was largely for obvious reasons. When we go to a lake and take a swim, we taste the cool fresh water that sometimes stimulates our thirst, but if you take a person from the middle of the United States, and put him on a beach in California, he might get the urge to go swimming in the ocean. If you don’t tell him what will happen when he tastes the water, he will come up spitting and gagging because of the massive salt content. However, we don’t taste calcium. In fact, we are incapable of tasting calcium. Sodium is the ion that is transmitted on our taste buds, and it was believed to be the most important ion because of its domination of the oceans. But sodium is tame compared to calcium.
Calcium highly reacts with the elements nitrogen and oxygen and the water molecule, which are prevalent in nature. It is speculated that the control of this abundant highly reactive molecule is integral to life. In the environment, calcium is mainly combined with chloride and carbon or other anions (negatively charged ions, which have more
electrons
in their
electron shells
than they have
protons
in their
nuclei
) in the form of a salt. Like a game of Tetris, the volatile calcium ions are stacked together to create organism structure. In bones and teeth, it is deposited as calcium phosphate. Seashells are mainly calcium carbonate.
Life apparently started on this planet about four billion years ago. As multicellular organisms evolved, calcium signaling and communication is believed to be the way cells were able to control other cells and themselves. The evidence for the role of calcium in the organism was left as footprints in the form of fossilized bones.
All beings today use calcium as a cellular regulator in all bodily organs. Calcium is extremely important in development. When an egg is fertilized, a calcium wave through the ovum initiates conception. Cellular development and division are calcium-dependent processes. Without calcium, an embryo will not develop properly and die. High concentrations of calcium are in a mother’s milk (among many other things).
In plants, calcium activity contributes in a similar manner. Root growth is stunted and useless if calcium is not present. In animals and plants, cell interaction and adhesion to each other,
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