Variability of the lengths of the internodal segments of myelinated nerve fibers: influence on electrical stimulus thresholds

Models of myelinated nerve fibers, used to investigate electrical nerve stimulation, are highly stylized abstractions of real fibers. One, usually implicit, assumption is that the lengths (L) of the internodal segments are constant. In the current work this assumption is evaluated by varying L, based on morphological data from the literature. The results show that the biological variation in L gives rise to changes of stimulus thresholds of -20% to +20% as compared with fibers with constant L