Realistic modeling of mesoscopic ephaptic coupling in the human brain
Ruffini, Giulio (Starlab Barcelona)
Salvador, Ricardo (Neuroelectrics Barcelona)
Tadayon, Ehsan (Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center (Boston, Estats Units d'Amèrica))
Sanchez-Todo, Roser (Neuroelectrics Barcelona)
Pascual Leone, Álvaro (Institut Germans Trias i Pujol. Institut Guttmann)
Santarnecchi, Emiliano (Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center (Boston, Estats Units d'Amèrica))

Data:	2020
Resum:	Several decades of research suggest that weak electric fields may influence neural processing, including those induced by neuronal activity and proposed as a substrate for a potential new cellular communication system, i. e. , ephaptic transmission. Here we aim to model mesoscopic ephaptic activity in the human brain and explore its trajectory during aging by characterizing the electric field generated by cortical dipoles using realistic finite element modeling. Extrapolating from electrophysiological measurements, we first observe that modeled endogenous field magnitudes are comparable to those in measurements of weak but functionally relevant self-generated fields and to those produced by noninvasive transcranial brain stimulation, and therefore possibly able to modulate neuronal activity. Then, to evaluate the role of these fields in the human cortex in large MRI databases, we adapt an interaction approximation that considers the relative orientation of neuron and field to estimate the membrane potential perturbation in pyramidal cells. We use this approximation to define a simplified metric (EMOD1) that weights dipole coupling as a function of distance and relative orientation between emitter and receiver and evaluate it in a sample of 401 realistic human brain models from healthy subjects aged 16-83. Results reveal that ephaptic coupling, in the simplified mesoscopic modeling approach used here, significantly decreases with age, with higher involvement of sensorimotor regions and medial brain structures. This study suggests that by providing the means for fast and direct interaction between neurons, ephaptic modulation may contribute to the complexity of human function for cognition and behavior, and its modification across the lifespan and in response to pathology.
Ajuts:	European Commission 686764
Nota:	Altres ajuts: The National Institutes of Health (R01HD069776, R01NS073601, R21MH099196, R21 NS082870, R21 NS085491, R21HD07616)
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Publicat a:	PLoS computational biology, Vol. 16 (june 2020) , ISSN 1553-7358

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007923
PMID: 32479496

25 p, 3.2 MB

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Documents de recerca > Documents dels grups de recerca de la UAB > Centres i grups de recerca (producció científica) > Ciències de la salut i biociències > Institut d'Investigació en Ciencies de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP)
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