BIOMEMBRANE EXCITABILITY STUDIED WITHIN A WIDE-BAND FREQUENCY OF AN INTERACTING EXOGENOUS ELECTRIC FIELD

Abstract

There does exist increasing experimental and theoretical evidence that supports the existence of a coupling between exogenous electromagnetic fields and ion channels located within the membrane of excitable cells. One of the most tantalizing consequences of such interactions points to a resonant-like behavior of this class of electrical non-linear systems leading to an optimized information transfer along excitable membranes. Herein, we present novel evidence showing that action potentials may occur in biomembranes within even the subthreshold excitation range, provided that concomitantly with the depolarizing stimulus, an exogenous low-amplitude oscillatory electric field of proper frequency (centered around 10 kHz) interacts with the biomembrane. As we present it, this phenomenon may be explained if one takes into consideration the resonant-like electrical properties of the linearized, small-signal impedance of the simplified, equivalent electrical representation of the studied biomembrane.

• Biomembrane
• Electric field
• Extracellular potential
• Electroconformational coupling