Abstract
Magnetic field detection of biological electric activities would provide a non-invasive and aseptic estimate of the functional state of cellular organization, namely a syncytium constructed with cell-to-cell electric coupling. In this study, we investigated the properties of biomagnetic waves which occur spontaneously in gut musculature as a typical functional syncytium, by applying an amorphous metal-based gradio-magneto sensor operated at ambient temperature without a magnetic shield. The performance of differentiation was improved by using a single amorphous wire with a pair of transducer coils. Biomagnetic waves of up to several nT were recorded ~1 mm below the sample in a real-time manner. Tetraethyl ammonium (TEA) facilitated magnetic waves reflected electric activity in smooth muscle. The direction of magnetic waves altered depending on the relative angle of the muscle layer and magneto sensor, indicating the existence of propagating intercellular currents. The magnitude of magnetic waves rapidly decreased to ~30% by the initial and subsequent 1 mm separations between sample and sensor. The large distance effect was attributed to the feature of bioelectric circuits constructed by two reverse currents separated by a small distance. This study provides a method for detecting characteristic features of biomagnetic fields arising from a syncytial current.
Highlights
Magnetic field detection of biological electric activities would provide a non-invasive and aseptic estimate of the functional state of cellular organization, namely a syncytium constructed with cell-to-cell electric coupling
We investigated the properties of biomagnetic waves which occur spontaneously in gut musculature as a typical functional syncytium, by applying an amorphous metal-based gradio-magneto sensor operated at ambient temperature without a magnetic shield
It is noted that this sensor uses an analogous device of a magnetoimpedance element, it does not measure the impedance of the amorphous wire during application of an AC current, but measures the amplitude of the induction potential in transducer pickup coils upon application of an excitation pulse (For more details see Methods, and Fig. S1)
Summary
Magnetic field detection of biological electric activities would provide a non-invasive and aseptic estimate of the functional state of cellular organization, namely a syncytium constructed with cell-to-cell electric coupling. We investigated the properties of biomagnetic waves which occur spontaneously in gut musculature as a typical functional syncytium, by applying an amorphous metal-based gradio-magneto sensor operated at ambient temperature without a magnetic shield. Magnetometers to measure biomagnetic fields would provide non-invasive and aseptic estimations of how cellular organizations electrically communicate and affect function Such devices would need to be sensitive to detect small signals from small biological samples, ideally in real time and should not an need elaborate or expensive infrastructure, so that they can be routinely and universally used in laboratory and hospital settings. We show quasi-real-time measurements of biomagnetic vector fields in typical functional syncytia of gut musculatures, by using an improved amorphous metal-based magneto sensor, which is operated at ambient temperature without a magnetic shield. Our practical and computational simulations www.nature.com/scientificreports demonstrate that this can be attributed to the feature of bioelectric circuits constructed by a propagating intercellular current and extracellular return currents separated by a small distance
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