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Presenter: Ashley Shepard

Faculty Sponsor: Billy Jackson

School: North Shore Community College

Research Area: Biomedical Engineering

Session: Poster Session 2, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM, Concourse, B12

ABSTRACT

A neuron is a cell, mainly located within the central nervous system, that communicates with other cells and transmits information via electrical signals. A direct contribution to the neuron's ability to generate these signals is the composition of its biological structure. Two key components of the neuron's structure, explained within this research, are the cell membrane and the ion channels. Within this research, the comprehensive structure of the neuronal membrane was modelled as a parallel resistor-capacitor circuit using circuit simulation software in an effort to analyze its physiological response to an injected current source in a passive state. The phospholipid bilayer of the neuronal cell membrane stores and separates electric charges, behaving as a capacitor. Meanwhile, the ion channels provide leak pathways that control the ionic flow of current across the cell membrane, acting as a resistor. The possession of resistive and capacitive elements within the neuron's biological structure allow it to be modeled as a resistor-capacitor circuit through the use of specialized circuit simulation software. Within this study, this simulation was performed utilizing PSpice, a commonly used simulation software for electrical circuit modelling. The results of this simulation were then analyzed through the application of classical electromagnetic principles to describe the dynamic behavior of the passive neuronal membrane state. These results provide explanation for membrane voltage responses such as charging and discharging behavior. However, the simple resistor-capacitor circuit model of the passive neuronal membrane captures linear behavior that has several distinct limitations in comparison to more complex nonlinear counterparts.