Emulation of Biological Cells

An action potential (AP) is an alteration in the membrane potential of an excitable cell. It occurs due to the size, shape, and type of cell excited. In literature, various differential equation (DE) based mathematical models have been proposed to emulate APs. More recently, a Fourier Series (FS) based technique has been proposed. This paper discusses the methodology to identify the parameters of the FS model for eventual implementation on an FPGA. Four DE models have been investigated. Two implementation techniques - direct digital synthesis (DDS) and double integrator based resonant model (RM) - have been compared in terms of FPGA resource usage. Our observations show that the FS model is an attractive alternative to the DE models. The FS implemented using the RM technique offers good accuracy with ease of FPGA implementation. The FS model has the potential for real-time tissues level emulation on an FPGA.