The Hodgkin-Huxley Equations and the Concrete Model: Comments on Craver, Schaffner, and Weber

Abstract

I claim that the Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) current equations owe a great deal of their importance to their role in bringing results from experiments on squid giant action preparations to bear on the study of the action potential in other neurons in other in vitro and in vivo environments. I consider ideas from Weber and Craver about the role of Coulomb's and other fundamental equations in explaining the action potential and in HH's development of their equations. Also, I offer an embellishment to Schaffner's emergent unifier conception of the HH model.