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External Excitation of Neurons Using Electric and Magnetic Fields in One- and Two-dimensional Cultures

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Volume current coupling-remote direct neural coupling across the extracellular space.

Ayumu Matani¹, Yusuke Takeda², Motofumi Fushimi²

¹Center for Brain, Mind and KANSEI Sciences Research, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Hiroshima 734-8551, Japan; Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.

|November 25, 2025

Summary

Neural coupling includes synaptic and volume current coupling (VcC). Researchers demonstrated that VcC, not synaptic coupling, can influence behavior and decision-making between individuals, suggesting its importance in brain function.

Keywords:

Electroencephalogram Ephaptic coupling Neural coupling Synaptic coupling Transcranial extracellular impedance control Volume current coupling

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Published on: October 13, 2012

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience
Cognitive Science

Background:

The brain, an electrical organ, operates within an electrolyte solution, leading to leakage currents.
Ephaptic coupling, a microscale neural interaction via leakage currents, influences neural spike timing.
Electroencephalograms (EEGs) reveal synchronous neural activity, suggesting longer-range electrical coupling.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of volume current coupling (VcC) in neural communication and behavior.
To demonstrate that neural coupling (NC) equals synaptic coupling (SC) plus VcC (NC = SC + VcC).
To explore the functional implications of VcC in inter- and intra-personal cognitive tasks.

Main Methods:

Two sensorily isolated individuals were electrically connected to exchange volume currents (Vcs) without attenuation.
Participants performed separate left-right discrimination tasks while connected and disconnected.
Analysis focused on behavioral outcomes, specifically discrimination performance and emergent biases.

Main Results:

Electrical connection facilitated a significant conflict and task-irrelevant conditional bias in discrimination tasks.
No synaptic coupling (SC) was detected between participants, confirming the role of VcC.
Intra-person experiments showed an unconditional right-preferential bias when disconnected and a conditional bias when connected.

Conclusions:

Volume current coupling (VcC) is a behaviorally functional form of neural coupling.
VcC contributes to cognitive and behavioral biases, both between and within individuals.
The ubiquitous nature of VcC as electrical crosstalk necessitates its consideration in studying brain functions beyond SC alone.