Modified Morris-Lecar neuron model: Effects of very low frequency electric fields and of magnetic fields on the local and network dynamics of an excitable media

Abstract A Morris-Lecar neuron model is considered with Electric and Magnetic field effects where the electric field is a time varying sinusoid and magnetic field is simulated using an exponential flux memristor. We have shown that the exposure to electric and magnetic fields have significant effects on the neurons and have exhibited complex oscillations. The neurons exhibit a frequency-locked state for the periodic electric field and different ratios of frequency locked states with respect to the electric field frequency is also presented. To show the impact of the electric and magnetic fields on network of neurons, we have constructed different types of network and have shown the network wave propagation phenomenon. Interestingly the nodes exposed to both electric and magnetic fields exhibit more stable spiral waves compared to the nodes exhibited only to the magnetic fields. Also, when the number of layers are increased the range of electric field frequency for which the layers exhibit spiral waves also increase. Finally the noise effects on the field affected neuron network are discussed and multilayer networks supress spiral waves for a very low noise variance compared against the single layer network.