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The Journal of Neuroscience, August 13, 2003, 23(19):7255-7261

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Sensitivity of Neurons to Weak Electric Fields

Joseph T. Francis,1,4 Bruce J. Gluckman,1,2 and Steven J. Schiff1,3,4

1Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies and Departments of 2Physics and Astronomy and 3Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia 22030, and 4Neuroscience Program, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20037

Weak electric fields modulate neuronal activity, and knowledge of the interaction threshold is important in the understanding of neuronal synchronization, in neural prosthetic design, and in the public health assessment of environmental extremely low frequency fields. Previous experimental measurements have placed the threshold between 1 and 5 mV/mm, although theory predicts that elongated neurons should have submillivolt per millimeter sensitivity near 100 µV/mm. We here provide the first experimental confirmation that neuronal networks are detectably sensitive to submillivolt per millimeter electrical fields [Gaussian pulses 26 msec full width at half-maximal, 140 µV/mm root mean square (rms), 295 µV/mm peak amplitude], an order of magnitude below previous findings, and further demonstrate that these networks are more sensitive than the average single neuron threshold (185 µV/mm rms, 394 µV/mm peak amplitude) to field modulation.

Key words: electric field; neuron; threshold; synchrony; ephaptic; hippocampus

Received Mar. 20, 2003; revised May. 9, 2003; accepted May. 13, 2003.




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