Repetitive low intensity magnetic field stimulation in a neuronal cell line: a metabolomics study

Ivan Hong; Andrew Garrett; Garth Maker; Ian Mullaney; Jennifer Rodger; Sarah J Etherington

doi:10.7717/peerj.4501

Repetitive low intensity magnetic field stimulation in a neuronal cell line: a metabolomics study

PeerJ. 2018 Mar 12:6:e4501. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4501. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Ivan Hong¹, Andrew Garrett², Garth Maker¹, Ian Mullaney¹, Jennifer Rodger^{2

3}, Sarah J Etherington¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia.
² School of Biological Sciences, Experimental and Regenerative Neuroscience, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia.
³ Brain Plasticity laboratory, Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science, Perth, WA, Australia.

Abstract

Low intensity repetitive magnetic stimulation of neural tissue modulates neuronal excitability and has promising therapeutic potential in the treatment of neurological disorders. However, the underpinning cellular and biochemical mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study investigates the behavioural effects of low intensity repetitive magnetic stimulation (LI-rMS) at a cellular and biochemical level. We delivered LI-rMS (10 mT) at 1 Hz and 10 Hz to B50 rat neuroblastoma cells in vitro for 10 minutes and measured levels of selected metabolites immediately after stimulation. LI-rMS at both frequencies depleted selected tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle metabolites without affecting the main energy supplies. Furthermore, LI-rMS effects were frequency-specific with 1 Hz stimulation having stronger effects than 10 Hz. The observed depletion of metabolites suggested that higher spontaneous activity may have led to an increase in GABA release. Although the absence of organised neural circuits and other cellular contributors (e.g., excitatory neurons and glia) in the B50 cell line limits the degree to which our results can be extrapolated to the human brain, the changes we describe provide novel insights into how LI-rMS modulates neural tissue.

Keywords: ELF-MF; GABA; Neuron; rTMS.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Murdoch University. At the time of the work, Ivan Hong was funded by an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship and Jennifer Rodger was a National Health and Research Council (Australia) Senior Research Fellow (APP1002258). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.