Rheobase is a measure of membrane potential excitability. In neuroscience, rheobase is the minimal current amplitude of infinite duration that results in the depolarization threshold of the cell membranes being reached, such as an action potential or the contraction of a muscle. In Greek, the root rhe translates to "current or flow", and basi means "bottom or foundation": thus the rheobase is the minimum current that will produce an action potential or muscle contraction.

Rheobase can be best understood in the context of the strength-duration relationship (Fig. 1). The ease with which a membrane can be stimulated depends on two variables: the strength of the stimulus, and the duration for which the stimulus is applied. These variables are inversely related: as the strength of the applied current increases, the time required to stimulate the membrane decreases (and vice versa) to maintain a constant effect. Mathematically, rheobase is equivalent to half the current that needs to be applied for the duration of chronaxie, which is a strength-duration time constant that corresponds to the duration of time that elicits a response when the nerve is stimulated at twice rheobasic strength.

The strength-duration curve was first discovered by G. Weiss in 1901, but it was not until 1909 that Louis Lapicque coined the term rheobase. Many studies are being conducted in relation to rheobase values and the dynamic changes throughout maturation and between different nerve fibers. In the past strength-duration curves and rheobase determinations were used to assess nerve injury; today, they play a role in clinical identification of many neurological pathologies, including diabetic neuropathy, CIDP, Machado–Joseph disease, and ALS.

The strength-duration time constant (chronaxie) and rheobase are parameters that describe the strength-duration curve—the curve that relates the intensity of a threshold stimulus to its duration. As the duration of a test stimulus increases, the strength of the current required to activate a single fiber action potential decreases.

The strength-duration curve is a plot of the threshold current (I) versus pulse duration (d) required to stimulate excitable tissue. As mentioned, the two important points on the curve are rheobase (b) and chronaxie (c), which correlates to twice the rheobase (2b). Strength-duration curves are useful in studies where the current required is changed when the pulse duration is changed.

In 1907, Louis Lapicque, a French neuroscientist, proposed his exponential equation for the strength-duration curve. His equation for determining current I:

where b relates to the rheobase value and c relates to the chronaxie value over duration d.

Lapicque's hyperbolic formula combines the threshold amplitude of a stimulus with its duration. This represents the first manageable with physiologically defined parameters that could compare excitability of different tissues, reflecting an urgent need at the turn of the 20th century. Lapicque used constant-current, capacitor-discharge pulses to obtain chronaxie for a wide variety of excitable tissues. Rheobase in the Lapicque equation is the asymptote of the hyperbolic curve at very long durations.