Electrophysiological effects of low frequency electrical radiation on the neural compartment: a theoretical investigation

Abstract

The effect of electromagnetic radiation on neurons has been studied extensively both experimentally and computationally. As for dendrites, these studies are mostly limited to the morphological aspects such as branching and not basically conductance. The effect of low frequency electric field radiation on the electrophysiological characteristics of dendrites is studied theoretically. The study is based on incorporating the effect of electric field components inside the modified cable equation and considering the geometry variation of the structure. The effect of different ionic components has been included with the aid of the Connor-Stevens model and the governing equation is then solved computationally. The results of the simulation indicate that the dendrites are physiologicaly sensitive to the radiation field. Variation in the electrophysiological aspects, including the firing rate, the conduction velocity, the pulse broadening and the latency are more pronounced in response to the external stimuli in the dendrites and are enhanced in the frequency range of 100 Hz to 10 kHz. To the best of our knowledge, the interaction of an electric field with non-uniform radius dendrites has not been studied nor modeled. The results of this study could be useful not only as a barrier to neurotoxicity of low frequency radiation, but also as a potential application in the treatment of neurophysiological disorders.

Recording Neural Activity Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance by Optical Fibers-A Computational Analysis

“…The basic therapeutic studies on the various types of neurological disorders including Alzheimer, Parkinson, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and traumatic brain injuries requires the real time monitoring of the neural activity (Kempuraj et al, 2017 ). The fundamental studies on the different treatments for the neuron based disorders such as pharmacological treatments, excitation with electric/magnetic fields and stem cell therapy are dependent to the devices in which the electrical activity of the neurons are monitored in real time (Eissa et al, 2018 ; Tekieh et al, 2018 ; Zhong et al, 2018 ). In addition, the advanced studies on the performance of the brain in cognitive neuroscience applications are from demanding areas of monitoring the electrical signaling and activity in different regions of brain (Chen et al, 2016 ; Hindriks et al, 2016 ; Sokolov et al, 2016 ; Deadwyler et al, 2017 ).…”