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In the context of the role of multiple physical factors in dictating stem cell fate, the present paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the intermittently delivered external electric field stimulation towards switching the stem cell fate to specific lineage, when cultured in the absence of biochemical growth factors. In particular, our findings present the ability of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) to respond to the electric stimuli by adopting extended neural-like morphology on conducting polymeric substrates. Polyaniline (PANI) is selected as the model system to demonstrate this effect, as the electrical conductivity of the polymeric substrates can be systematically tailored over a broad range (10⁻⁹ to 10 S/cm) from highly insulating to conducting by doping with varying concentrations (10⁻⁵ to 1 m) of HCl. On the basis of the culture protocol involving the systematic delivery of intermittent electric field (dc) stimulation, the …