Computational modeling of photomechanical effects during infrared neural stimulation

Infrared neural stimulation (INS) is a label-free method that uses infrared light to excite neural tissue. Because the biophysical mechanism of INS is not fully understood, we present a computational modeling study demonstrating photomechanical effects in a rat sciatic nerve from infrared pulses across a range of pulse widths. By comparing the resulting pressure and displacement across different pulse widths, this allows for insight of the sensitivity of the photomechanical effects from laser irradiation. Additionally, a further look into the initial spike of the Ho:YAG laser shows that a photomechanical component could possibly explain the lower stimulation threshold.