Why Do Action Potentials Only Travel Down the Axon and Not

question 94

Multiple Choice

Why do action potentials only travel down the axon and not the other direction?

• A) An area where an action potential just occurred is still in a refractory period.
• B) Resting potentials change with direction of the nerve impulse.
• C) Sodium-potassium pumps only act in one direction.
• D) Actions potential do not cause depolarization.

---

Definitions:

Poisson Approximation

A statistical approximation method that applies the Poisson distribution to model the number of events in fixed intervals of time or space under certain conditions.

Probability

The statistical likelihood that a specific event will take place, calculated as a fraction or a percentage between 0% (never happening) and 100% (always happening).

Normal Model

A statistical model, also called the normal distribution, that describes how continuous data is distributed, shaped like a symmetric bell curve.

Standard Deviations

Measures that quantify the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of data values from the mean.