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Updated: Jul 29, 2025

External Excitation of Neurons Using Electric and Magnetic Fields in One- and Two-dimensional Cultures
Published on: May 7, 2017
Cytoelectric coupling: Electric fields sculpt neural activity and "tune" the brain's infrastructure
Dimitris A Pinotsis1, Gene Fridman2, Earl K Miller3
1Centre for Mathematical Neuroscience and Psychology and Department of Psychology, City -University of London, London EC1V 0HB, United Kingdom; The Picower Institute for Learning & Memory and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Abstract:
We propose and present converging evidence for the Cytoelectric Coupling Hypothesis: Electric fields generated by neurons are causal down to the level of the cytoskeleton. This could be achieved via electrodiffusion and mechanotransduction and exchanges between electrical, potential and chemical energy. Ephaptic coupling organizes neural activity, forming neural ensembles at the macroscale level. This information propagates to the neuron level, affecting spiking, and down to molecular level to stabilize the cytoskeleton, "tuning" it to process information more efficiently.
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