A NOVEL MODEL FOR EXCITATION OF PERIPHERAL NERVES STIMULATED BY A TRANSVERSE ELECTRIC FIELD

The disadvantage of the classical cable model is that it cannot describe the excitation of peripheral nerves stimulated by a perpendicular electric field. To address this problem, a novel model is studied and presented to describe peripheral nerves stimulated by a transverse-field in this paper. With this model, the responses of the Ranvier nodes by a transverse-field are investigated. The simulation demonstrates that under perpendicular electric field stimulation, the responses of Ranvier nodes evoke a two-stage process including an initial polarization and the actual change of the transmembrane potential. The peripheral nerve excitation results from the net inward current along a radial direction of the Ranvier node driven with an external field.