Human Foetal Neuroblasts Exhibit BK Channel‐Dependent Membrane Voltage Oscillations upon Depolarization
Elisabetta Coppi, Federica Cherchi, Martina Venturini, Federico Tommasi, Sandro Gonzi, Chiara Capacci, Giulia Guarnieri, Pasquale Gallina, Annamaria Morelli, Anna Maria Pugliese · 2026
Read Human Foetal Neuroblasts Exhibit BK Channel‐Dependent Membrane Voltage Oscillations upon Depolarization by Elisabetta Coppi, Federica Cherchi, Martina Venturini, Federico Tommasi, Sandro Gonzi, Chiara Capacci, Giulia Guarnieri, Pasquale Gallina, Annamaria Morelli, Anna Maria Pugliese (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13397815.txt.
Description
Elisabetta Coppi and colleagues report odd electrical behaviour in immature human brain cells grown from foetal tissue. Their 2026 study works with neuroblasts taken from the nucleus basalis of Meynert of 12-week foetuses, cells that can make and respond to acetylcholine but lack grown-up firing patterns. While hunting for normal action potentials, the team stumbled on something else entirely.
When pushed toward firing, the cells instead swung their voltage in fast, regular waves averaging 70 cycles per second. Blocking calcium stores or the large potassium channels named BK stopped the rhythm, pinning it on those channels. The finding suggests young neurons pass through a stage of clock-like voltage swings before adult-style signalling takes over.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Elisabetta Coppi, Federica Cherchi, Martina Venturini, Federico Tommasi, Sandro Gonzi, Chiara Capacci, Giulia Guarnieri, Pasquale Gallina, Annamaria Morelli, Anna Maria Pugliese |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 55436 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |