Institute of Biomedical & Health Engineering, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenzhen, China.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Front Neural Circuits. 2021 Jan 18;14:562005. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2020.562005. eCollection 2020.
Starting from the inductance in neurons, two physical origins are discussed, which are the coil inductance of myelin and the piezoelectric effect of the cell membrane. The direct evidence of the coil inductance of myelin is the opposite spiraling phenomenon between adjacent myelin sheaths confirmed by previous studies. As for the piezoelectric effect of the cell membrane, which has been well-known in physics, the direct evidence is the mechanical wave accompany with action potential. Therefore, a more complete physical nature of neural signals is provided. In conventional neuroscience, the neural signal is a pure electrical signal. In our new theory, the neural signal is an energy pulse containing electrical, magnetic, and mechanical components. Such a physical understanding of the neural signal and neural systems significantly improve the knowledge of the neurons. On the one hand, we achieve a corrected neural circuit of an inductor-capacitor-capacitor (LCC) form, whose frequency response and electrical characteristics have been validated by previous studies and the modeling fitting of artifacts in our experiments. On the other hand, a number of phenomena observed in neural experiments are explained. In particular, they are the mechanism of magnetic nerve stimulations and ultrasound nerve stimulations, the MRI image contrast issue and Anode Break Excitation. At last, the biological function of myelin is summarized. It is to provide inductance in the process of neural signal, which can enhance the signal speed in peripheral nervous systems and provide frequency modulation function in central nervous systems.
从神经元的电感开始，讨论了两个物理起源，即髓鞘的线圈电感和细胞膜的压电效应。髓鞘线圈电感的直接证据是先前研究证实的相邻髓鞘鞘之间的反向螺旋现象。至于细胞膜的压电效应，在物理学中已经广为人知，直接证据是伴随动作电位的机械波。因此，提供了更完整的神经信号物理性质。在传统神经科学中，神经信号是纯电信号。在我们的新理论中，神经信号是一种包含电、磁和机械分量的能量脉冲。这种对神经信号和神经系统的物理理解显著提高了对神经元的认识。一方面，我们实现了修正后的电感-电容-电容（LCC）形式的神经回路，其频率响应和电气特性已经通过先前的研究和我们实验中伪影的建模拟合得到验证。另一方面，解释了许多在神经实验中观察到的现象。特别是，它们是磁神经刺激和超声神经刺激的机制、MRI 图像对比问题和阳极断路激发。最后，总结了髓鞘的生物学功能。它是在神经信号过程中提供电感，可以提高周围神经系统中的信号速度，并在中枢神经系统中提供频率调制功能。
