Capital Punishment in Texas

May 2015

Extracellular [K+] up -> arrhythmia
(Extracellular [K+] down -> arrhythmia)

This principle is used for Execution in Texas. How do you stop the heart to terminate a person's life because of death penalty? Injection of K+. That causes a severe arrhythmia, and even stops your heart and thus your life. That is why K+ is so dangerous to your heart. (I like this kind of trivia/application, even though it is not a pleasant one.)

Does [Na+] have the same effect of arrhythmia? No. Because It does not effect the resting membrane potentials, since there is no conductance of Na+ practically(all channels are closed at rest).

K+ is, on the contrary, leaky(there is conductance) due to non-gated K+ channels. That is why resting membrane potential is disturbed when EC [K+] is changed. eg. EC[K+] ++++ (by injection for instance)-> even K+ influx occurs(K+ eflux usually happens due to high K+ concentration in IC space)-> depolariztion(resting membrane potential disturbance) -> arrythmia

I also love this kind of "how it works". (Physiology)

Wikipedia: Capital Punishment in Texas Under Texas law, executions are carried out at or after 6 p.m. Huntsville (Central) time "by intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death and until such convict is dead".[32] The law does not specify the substance(s) to be used; previously, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice the chemicals used for the lethal injection were the commonly-used three-drug combination of (in order) sodium thiopental (a dose which sedates the offender, but not enough to kill outright), pancuronium bromide (a muscle relaxant which collapses the diaphragm and lungs), and potassium chloride (which stops the heartbeat). The offender is usually pronounced dead approximately seven minutes after start of the injection process; the cost for the three substances is $86.08 per offender.[5]

Essays of a medical student. Essays on Medicine