A Network Model of Small Intestinal Electrical Activities

Abstract

<p> An electronic circuit based on a modified version of the four branch Hodgkin-Huxley electrical equivalent circuit (Roy, 1972) has been proposed and implemented to simulate the pattern of the electrical activities present in the muscle cells of the mammalian small intestine. </p> <p> The analog's implementation comprises two main circuits to simulate these activities. One of them is concerned with generating sub threshold oscillations, while the other is basically a spike-generator circuit. Additional circuitry is included to interface them. Furthermore, the analog provides a parameter set by means of which its performance may be varied. Such settings may alter the intrinsic frequency, the magnitude of the depolarizing phase of the control potential for the response activity to occur, and also the frequency of the electrical response activity. </p> <p> Four such electronic oscillators, having different intrinsic frequencies, were coupled together in a chain structure with passive elements to simulate "frequency pulling" and "entrainment" . The model qualitatively reproduced the observed pattern of electrical activities in the small intestine. </p>