A model for compound action potentials and currents in a nerve bundle. I: The forward calculation.

Abstract

We describe a model for the Compound Action Currents (CACs) and Compound Action Potentials (CAPs) produced by a peripheral nerve bundle in vitro. The Single Fiber Action Currents (SFACs) and the extracellular Single Fiber Action Potentials (SFAPs) are calculated using a generalized volume conduction model. Frequency-dependent conductivities, variations in the intracellular action potentials with recording temperature and axon conduction velocity, and the effects of axonal myelination are incorporated into the volume conduction calculation. We demonstrate how the propagation distance and the recording radius affect the simulated Compound Action Signals (CASs) of various nerve bundles. We also demonstrate how the frequency-dependent and -independent conductivities affect the CASs simulated by our model. For this simulation, some of the parameters for the nerve bundles and Conduction Velocity Distributions (CVDs) were obtained from the literature. In accompanying papers, we use the simulated CASs to investigate the effects of variations in the model parameters on the CVDs predicted by our inverse model.