[superkuh]

No, it's not about ions going through the membrane or membrane pemeability. It is not about resistance to ions flow across the 10nm they travel perpendicular to the membrane. Transport of ions across through ion channels are required for the effect but the membrane itself (usually) is not leaking and I'm not talking about changes in leakage.

It is about how the various ions like Na+ and Ca+2 associated with the membrane itself to change the membrane's physical properties. When there's lots of light gas anesthetic dissolved in the lipid membrane keeping the heat capacity low (disordered) it is thermodynamically harder (requires more energy) to form the organized 'solid' (actually more like a gel) state that propagates as the action potential.

ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.11481 - good overview paper, http://erewhon.superkuh.com/library/Neuroscience/Lipid%20Mem... - other papers/books on the subject.