Extracellular neural microstimulation may activate much larger regions than expected by simulations: a combined experimental and modeling study
PLoS ONE. 2012-08-07; 7(8): e41324
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041324
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1. PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e41324. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041324. Epub 2012 Aug 7.
Extracellular neural microstimulation may activate much larger regions than
expected by simulations: a combined experimental and modeling study.
Joucla S(1), Branchereau P, Cattaert D, Yvert B.
Author information:
(1)Université Bordeaux, Institut des Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives
d’Aquitaine, UMR5287, Bordeaux, Talence, France.
Electrical stimulation of the central nervous system has been widely used for
decades for either fundamental research purposes or clinical treatment
applications. Yet, very little is known regarding the spatial extent of an
electrical stimulation. If pioneering experimental studies reported that
activation threshold currents (TCs) increase with the square of the
neuron-to-electrode distance over a few hundreds of microns, there is no evidence
that this quadratic law remains valid for larger distances. Moreover, nowadays,
numerical simulation approaches have supplanted experimental studies for
estimating TCs. However, model predictions have not yet been validated directly
with experiments within a common paradigm. Here, we present a direct comparison
between experimental determination and modeling prediction of TCs up to distances
of several millimeters. First, we combined patch-clamp recording and
microelectrode array stimulation in whole embryonic mouse spinal cords to
determine TCs. Experimental thresholds did not follow a quadratic law beyond 1
millimeter, but rather tended to remain constant for distances larger than 1
millimeter. We next built a combined finite element–compartment model of the
same experimental paradigm to predict TCs. While theoretical TCs closely matched
experimental TCs for distances