Study On The Relationship Between The Neuroelectricial Signals And The Biophotonic Transmission In Nerve Fibers

The transmission and processing of neural information in the nervous system plays a key role in neural functions.It is well accepted that neural communication is mediated by bioelectricity and chemical molecules via the processes called bioelectrical and chemical transmissions,respectively.The ionic theory of the signal transmission in nerve fibers was first established by Hodgkin and Huxley,which is also called HH theory(or HH model).However,the current studies suggest that this theory does not completely explain the some existed experimental phenomena related to electrical signal transmission along nerve fibers,and even there are contradictory situations.Recent studies suggest that the signal transduction of nerve fibers may be not entirely due to the flow of ions across the membrane,and could be a kind of "soliton wave" transmission.However,it is unknown what is the biophysical characteristics of such a "soliton wave".Biophotons are the spontaneous generation of ultra-weak photon emission in biological system.Previous findings have shown that biophotonic activities could transmit along the rat sensory and motor nerve fibers.In addition,it has been demonstrated that glutamate-induced biophotonic activities could transmit in neural circuits in mouse brain slices,suggesting an important relationship between the biophotons and the neural information transmission and coding,which may be also the physical basis of "soliton wave".In the present study,by using bullfrog's sciatic nerve and sciatic nerve-gastrocnemius muscle specimens as experimental materials,we first tried to observe the characteristics of the action potential interaction through the action potential collision experiment;then,the relationship between action potential and muscle contraction change was investigated by the action potential pharmacological intervention and the disruption of microtubule functions;and finally,the biophoton imaging technique was used to investigate the biophotonic activities induced by the electrical stimulation of sciatic nerve.The conduction and interaction characteristics of the compound action potential induced by the electrical stimulation are consist with that of "soliton wave",confirming the previous findings,but contradicting with the traditional electrical signal conduction theory.Impairment of microtubule function of sciatic nerve treated with colchicine did not block action potential transfer,but decreased the force of muscle contraction significantly.In addition,the application of tetrodotoxin(TTX)and nerve anesthetics(procaine)to sciatic nerve could reduce time-dependently andeventually completely block the action potential transmission and muscle contraction.These results suggest that the electrical stimulation of sciatic nerve induces a microtubule dependent,but non-action potential dependent neural signal that could transconduct along the nerve fibers,and affect muscle contraction.The results obtained from the biophoton imaging of the sciatic nerve indicate that the biophotonic activities induced by electrical stimulation may be related to such a neural signal,but it still needs to be further determined.