ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2007
Spike timing amplifies the effect of electric fields on neurons: implications for endogenous field effects.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 143 papers.
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Who cites it
143 citing papers in PubMed, 303 citations in OpenAlex.
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- High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation dissociates fronto-visual theta lateralization during visual selective attention.The Journal of physiology · 2020Trial
- Low frequency transcranial electrical stimulation does not entrain sleep rhythms measured by human intracranial recordings.Nature communications · 2017Trial
- Is transcranial alternating current stimulation effective in modulating brain oscillations?PloS one · 2013Trial
- Transcranial electrical currents to probe EEG brain rhythms and memory consolidation during sleep in humans.PloS one · 2011Trial
- A causal and dissociable role for the right inferior frontal gyrus in empathy for physical and social pain.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Non-vectorial integration of intersectional short-pulse stimulation enables enhanced deep brain modulation and effective seizure control.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Effects of Extracellular Resistance on Neuronal Sensitivity Under Weak Alternating Electric Field Stimulation: A Computational Study.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Neural changes to transcranial alternating current stimulation in the gamma range over the left frontoparietal network: A preliminary eLORETA EEG study.AIMS neuroscience · 2026Article
- Regionally specific picture naming benefits of focal tDCS are dependent on baseline performance in older adults.GeroScience · 2025Article
- Combined effects of red light and direct-current electric fields on neurite growth in 3D neural cell cultures.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Ionic Direct Current Enables Millimeter- and Millisecond-Scale Cortical Gain Control in vivo.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Excitation and polarization of isolated neurons by high-frequency sine waves for temporal interference stimulation.Cell reports. Physical science · 2025Article
- Precision non-invasive brain stimulation: anJournal of neural engineering · 2025Article
- Effects of dendritic CaJournal of computational neuroscience · 2025Article
- Recommendations for the Safe Application of Temporal Interference Stimulation in the Human Brain Part I: Principles of Electrical Neuromodulation and Adverse Effects.Bioelectromagnetics · 2025Review
- Quantum-like representation of neuronal networks' activity: modeling "mental entanglement".Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Understanding the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on the neurovascular unit: a narrative review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- Resolving inconsistent effects of tDCS on learning using a homeostatic structural plasticity model.Frontiers in network physiology · 2025Article
- Inkjet-printed transparent electrodes: Design, characterization, and initial in vivo evaluation for brain stimulation.PloS one · 2025Article
83 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite compelling phenomenological evidence that small electric fields (<5 mV/mm) can affect brain function, a quantitative and experimentally verified theory is currently lacking. Here we demonstrate a novel mechanism by which the nonlinear properties of single neurons "amplify" the effect of small electric fields: when concurrent to suprathreshold synaptic input, small electric fields can have significant effects on spike timing. For low-frequency fields, our theory predicts a linear dependency of spike timing changes on field strength. For high-frequency fields (relative to the synaptic input), the theory predicts coherent firing, with mean firing phase and coherence each increasing monotonically with field strength. Importantly, in both cases, the effects of fields on spike timing are amplified with decreasing synaptic input slope and increased cell susceptibility (millivolt membrane polarization per field amplitude). We confirmed these predictions experimentally using CA1 hippocampal neurons in vitro exposed to static (direct current) and oscillating (alternating current) uniform electric fields. In addition, we develop a robust method to quantify cell susceptibility using spike timing. Our results provide a precise mechanism for a functional role of endogenous field oscillations (e.g., gamma) in brain function and introduce a framework for considering the effects of environmental fields and design of low-intensity therapeutic neurostimulation technologies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.