| capacitance | The quantity of electric charge that may be stored upon a body per unit electric potential; expressed in farads, abfarads, or statfarads. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| capacitance flicker | <physiology> Brief closings of an ion channel during ion channel openings, observed during patch clamp (or rapid transition of an ion channel between open and closed states such that the individual channel openings cannot be distinguished properly due to the limited bandwidth of the patch clamp amplifier.) (16 Dec 1997) |
| vascular capacitance | The relationship between the volume of blood contained within a segment of vasculature and the pressure distending the vascular walls over a wide range of pressures and volumes. The veins of the body are not only conduits for the return of blood to the right heart, but they also determine most of the vascular capacitance and contain most of the blood volume. Changes in vascular capacitance provide a quick and effective mechanism for the filling of the right heart, thereby influencing cardiac output. Vascular capacitance is somewhat analogous to vascular resistance but whereas vascular resistance relates to flow through a blood vessel, vascular capacitance relates to the volume contained in it. (12 Dec 1998) |
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| membrane capacitance | The electrical capacitance of a membrane. Plasma membranes are excellent insulators and dielectrics: capacitance is the measure of the quantity of charge that must be moved across unit area of the membrane to produce unit change in membrane potential and is measured in Farads. most plasma membranes have a capacitance around 1 microfarad cmexp 2. (18 Nov 1997) |