No chemical synapses?

[going2breakdown]

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This book is describing the cardiac muscle, it says depolarization of cardiac muscle occurs through the gap junctions...then it says it is an electrical synapse, not a chemical one. I don't get how this works, because, up to this point we were just dealing with electrochemical gradients. If this is just an electrical synapse, how is charge being propagated? There are electrons of some sort? So it's like a wire?

 

[Raiden2012]

Electrical synapse means that the charges are spread through gap junctions which are conduits that connect adjacent cells. Unlike chemical synapses where transmitters have to be released into the synaptic cleft before being taken up by the post synaptic membrane. The charge is being propagated by the ions.

Hope this makes sense

 

[going2breakdown]

Thanks this helps a lot.