Calculated electric field induced in bundles of long cells in the human body when it is exposed to low-frequency electric fields.
A theoretical analysis is made of the electric field induced in the interior of long cylindrical cells arranged in bundles of parallel cells embedded in the saline fluid in the human body exposed to extremely low-frequency (ELF) and very low-frequency (VLF) electric fields parallel to the length of the cells. Such bundles characterize muscle. The analysis parallels in many respects the earlier study of isolated long cells (King and Wu, Phys. Rev. E 58, 2363-2369, 1998) but has important added complications. It leads to a similar result: The field inside the membrane of each long cell is the same as the field just outside the membrane in the saline fluid; i.e., the membrane provides no shielding. While one might expect the presence of the neighboring cells to provide a shielding effect for each cell, the results of this study show quantitatively that this is not the case. In fact, the electric field in the interior of each of a bundle of long cells is seen to increase very slightly (of the order of 0.4%) when the cells in the bundle are moved close enough to be practically in contact.
King
R W
RW
Gordon McKay Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Wu
T T
TT
D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D009132:Muscles / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects*; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects*; D055672:Static Electricity