Electrophysiological damage to the neuronal membrane alters ephaptic communication

Abstract

The large number of neurons in the human brain are connected to form a functionally specialize system. The brain is typically understood as a complex network system with a particular organization and topology that can functionally result in specific electrophysiological patterns. Among all the dynamic elements resulting from the circuits of the brain’s network, ephapticity is a barely explored cellular mechanism. In this work, we investigated, through numerical simulation, the relationship between alterations in ephaptic neuronal communication and preference for frequency peak entrainment, when the electrophysiological properties of the neuronal membrane are impaired. This change in frequency band amplitude is observed in some neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s Disease (increased amplitude in the β band) or Alzheimer’s Disease (increased amplitude in the β, θ and δ bands). In this context, a damaged model was proposed based on the impairment of both in the resistance of the ion channels (b) and in the capacitance of the lipid membrane (h). With the new parameters, b and h, the ephaptic communication is simulated using the hybrid neural model Integrate-and-Fire Quadratic Ephaptic (QIF-E). Our results show a link between the peak entrainment (ephapticity) preference shifted to some frequency band when the damage occurs mainly in ion channels (b). Finally, possible relationships of ephaptic communication and neurodegenerative diseases associated with aging factors are discussed.