The dental pulp is characterized as a connective tissue and as such it is not considered an external tissue, yet its exposure to external stimuli is constant. This is due to a number of factors including the permeability of attrited or disrupted enamel as well as that of physiologic dentin and cementum. The pulp is extraordinarily sensitive to its external environment. Once thought to be a vest...

Hodgkin and Huxley (1952) demonstrated the presence of voltage-activated sodium (Na ) and potassium (K ) permeabilities in the squid giant axon. Ever since then, biophysicists have tried to understand how voltage activates the ionic pathways responsible for the action potential. Hodgkin and Huxley (1952) concluded that there had to be charges or charge dipoles in the membrane that move in respo...