Electric potential in cylindrical syncytia and muscle fibers

Abstract

The model developed in an earlier paper using two coupled partial differential equations for calculating the intracellular and extracellular electric potentials in a syncytium is applied here to cylindrical geometry. Eigenfunction expansions are obtained for the potentials resulting from an intracellular point source of current. The required orthogonality relations for the two sets of coupled radial eigenfunctions are derived. The model is applied to the structure composed of the interior and the transverse tubules of a muscle fiber. Asymtotic expansions for ζ and β→0 are obtained, where ζ is the product of the effective intracellular resistivity, the fiber radius and the outer surface membrane admittance per unit area, and β is the ratio of the effective intracellular resistivity to that of the tubular lumen. Earlier results from the distributed circuit model of a muscle fiber are recovered when ζ and β are small, and for a nerve axon when β=0.