Alternative model of propagation of spikes along neurons

Abstract

Here a viable and never before investigated mechanism of propagation of spikes along neurons is proposed. In the following, velocity of propagation of small-amplitude pressure waves through the cytoplasmic interior of myelinated and unmyelinated axons of different diameters is theoretically estimated, and is found to generally agree with the action potential (AP) conduction velocities. This remarkable coincidence allows to surmise a model in which AP spread along axon is propelled not by straggling ionic currents as in the widely accepted local circuit theory, but by mechanoactivation of the membrane ion channels by a traveling pressure pulse. Hydraulic pulses propagating in the viscous axoplasm are calculated to decay over $\sim$ 1 mm distances, and it is further hypothesized that it is the role of influxing during the AP Ca$^{2+}$ ions to activate the membrane skeletal protein network for a brief radial contraction amplifying the pressure pulse and preventing its decay. The model correctly predicts that the AP conduction velocity should vary as the one-half power of axon diameter for large unmyelinated axons, and as the first power of the diameter for myelinated axons, provided that specific mechanical properties of axons are independent from diameter; that myelinization increases the conduction velocity; that the conduction velocity increases with the temperature. Unlike the local circuit theory, the model is able to qualitatively explain observed increase in the AP duration in axons of smaller diameters. Predictions of...