Combined electric field and gap junctions on propagation of action potentials in cardiac muscle and smooth muscle in PSpice simulation.

Propagation of action potentials in cardiac muscle and smooth muscle were simulated using the PSpice program. Excitation was transmitted from cell to cell along a strand of 6 cells (cardiac muscle) or 10 cells (smooth muscle) either not connected (control) or connected by low-resistance tunnels (gap-junction connexons). A significant negative cleft potential (V(jv) ) develops in the narrow junctional cleft when the pre-JM fires. V(jc) depolarizes the postjunctional membrane (post-JM) to threshold by a patch-clamp action. With few connecting tunnels, cell-to-cell transmission by the EF mechanism was facilitated. With many tunnels, propagation was dominated by the low-resistance mechanism, and propagation velocity (theta) became very fast and nonphysiological. In conclusion, when the 2 mechanisms for cell-to-cell transfer of excitation were combined, the two mechanisms facilitated each other in a synergistic manner. When there were many connecting tunnels, the tunnel mechanism was dominant.