THE BIOELECTRICAL SOURCE IN COMPUTING SINGLE MUSCLE-FIBER ACTION-POTENTIALS

Generally, single muscle fiber action potentials (SFAPs) are modeled as a convolution of the bioelectrical source (being the transmembrane current) with a weighting or transfer function, representing the electrical volume conduction. In practice, the intracellular action potential (IAP) rather than the transmembrane current is often used as the source, because the IAP is relatively easy to obtain under experimental conditions. Using a core conductor assumption, the transmembrane current equals the second derivative of the IAP. In previous articles, discrepancies were found between experimental and simulated SFAPs. Adaptations in the volume conductor slightly altered the simulation results. Another origin of discrepancy might be an erroneous description of the source. Therefore, in the present article, different sources were studied. First, an analytical description of the IAP was used. Furthermore, an experimental IAP, a special experimental SFAP, and a measured transmembrane current scaled to our experimental situation were applied. The results for the experimental IAP were comparable to those with the analytical IAP. The best agreement between experimental and simulated data was found for a measured transmembrane current as source, but differences are still apparent. © 1993, The Biophysical Society. All rights reserved.