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Five hypotheses to examine the nature of magnetic field transduction in biological systems
Author(s) -
Engström Stefan,
Fitzsimmons Robert
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
bioelectromagnetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.435
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-186X
pISSN - 0197-8462
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1521-186x(199910)20:7<423::aid-bem3>3.0.co;2-w
Subject(s) - transduction (biophysics) , field (mathematics) , signal transduction , signal (programming language) , process (computing) , biological system , computer science , biology , neuroscience , physics , mathematics , biophysics , microbiology and biotechnology , pure mathematics , programming language , operating system
This paper postulates five experiments that may be used to characterize the nature of the transduction step in which a magnetic or electric field is converted into a biological signal. Each of the five experiments is formulated as a refutable hypothesis in such a manner that rejection of the hypothesis will provide information about the transduction process and an associated confidence level for evaluating each experiment. The proposed hypotheses are formulated to provide inferences about the mode of interaction (magnetic field or induced electric field transduction), spatial distribution of the detector elements in the biological system, and the timescale of the transductive step. Bioelectromagnetics 20:423–430, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.