Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine Bronx, NY, USA.
Front Neural Circuits. 2010 May 18;4:15. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2010.00015. eCollection 2010.
An endogenous electrical field effect, i.e., ephaptic transmission, occurs when an electric field associated with activity occurring in one neuron polarizes the membrane of another neuron. It is well established that field effects occur during pathological conditions, such as epilepsy, but less clear if they play a functional role in the healthy brain. Here, we describe the principles of field effect interactions, discuss identified field effects in diverse brain structures from the teleost Mauthner cell to the mammalian cortex, and speculate on the function of these interactions. Recent evidence supports that relatively weak endogenous and exogenous field effects in laminar structures reach significance because they are amplified by network interactions. Such interactions may be important in rhythmogenesis for the cortical slow wave and hippocampal sharp wave-ripple, and also during transcranial stimulation.
当与一个神经元活动相关的电场使另一个神经元的膜极化时，就会发生内源性电场效应，即电突触传递。电场效应在癫痫等病理条件下发生是众所周知的，但在健康大脑中它们是否发挥功能作用还不太清楚。在这里，我们描述了场效应相互作用的原理，讨论了从硬骨鱼 Mauthner 细胞到哺乳动物皮层的不同脑结构中已确定的场效应，并推测了这些相互作用的功能。最近的证据表明，层状结构中相对较弱的内源性和外源性场效应具有重要意义，因为它们会被网络相互作用放大。这种相互作用在皮层慢波和海马体锐波-涟漪的节律生成中以及经颅刺激期间可能很重要。
