Carotid body A decrease in oxygen partial pressure, an increase in carbon dioxide partial pressure, and a decrease in arterial pH can all cause depolarization of the cell membrane, and they affect this by blocking potassium currents. This reduction in the membrane potential opens voltage-gated calcium channels, which causes a rise in intracellular calcium concentration. This causes exocytosis of vesicles containing a variety of neurotransmitters, including acetylcholine, noradrenaline, dopamine, adenosine, ATP, substance P, and met-enkephalin. These act on receptors on the afferent nerve fibres which lie in apposition to the glomus cell to cause an action potential. The feedback from the carotid
Human body and about 23 litres of fluid inside cells. The content, acidity and composition of the water inside and outside cells is carefully maintained. The main electrolytes in body water outside cells are sodium and chloride, whereas within cells it is potassium and other phosphates. The body contains trillions of cells, the fundamental unit of life. At maturity, there are roughly 30–37 trillion cells in the body, an estimate arrived at by totalling the cell numbers of all the organs of the body and cell types. The body is also host to about the same number of non-human cells as well