New paper!
Cytoelectric Coupling: Electric fields sculpt neural activity and “tune” the brain’s infrastructure.
Brain waves carry info and alter the brain on the molecular level. This tunes the cytoskeleton, optimizing network function.
Work by Dimitris Pinotsis.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2023.102465
@ekmiller I imagine any paper about the electric fields for cognition that also mentions both Hameroff/Penrose's microtubule model and tensegrity could invite some skepticism. Those topics are associated with a lot of really noisy, nonrigorous/inaccurate, and sometimes bizzare writings. Skepticism, though, comes from a word that means "to consider," and this paper has a lot of interesting things to consider.
Excited to dig into some of the references too, especially about electrodiffusion. I've been wondering about how electricity moves in the brain other than through action potentials, since phospholipids are conductive https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.67.3.1268 not insulated like electrical cables. So are the cytosol and interstitial fluid.
The electricity is going all over the place. The force of the AP is greater and more action packed, but the diffusing electricity has to be affecting things too
@axoaxonic Action potentials are large but the brain is not single neurons. Smaller effects like EF fluctuations multiplied over millions of neurons add up to huge effects.
Also keep in mind that neurons do not spike continuously. In fact, most of the time, they are not spiking. By contrast, fluctuations in EF are happening continuously.
BTW, I think it is a strange attitude to be skeptical about a paper because it cites one paper that you don't like.
Earl K. Miller
Holly A. Gultiano