Effect of electrical stimulation on biological cells by capacitive
coupling -- an efficient numerical study considering model uncertainties
Abstract
This is a preprint of an article published in Scientific
Reports. The final authenticated version is available online at:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08279-w .
Electrical stimulation of biological samples such as tissues and cell
cultures attracts growing attention due to its capability of enhancing
cell activity, proliferation and differentiation. Eventually, profound
knowledge of the underlying mechanisms paves the way for innovative
therapeutic devices. Capacitive coupling is one option of delivering
electric fields to biological samples and has advantages with regard to
biocompatibility. However, the mechanism of interaction is not well
understood. Experimental findings could be related to voltage-gated
channels, which are triggered by changes of the transmembrane potential
(TMP). Numerical simulations by the Finite Element method (FEM) provide
a possibility to estimate the TMP. For realistic simulations of in
vitro electric stimulation experiments, a bridge from the mesoscopic
level down to the cellular level has to be found. A special challenge
poses the ratio between the cell membrane (a few nm) and the
general setup (some cm). Hence, a full discretization of the cell
membrane becomes prohibitively expensive for 3D simulations. We suggest
using an approximate FE method that makes 3D multi-scale simulations
possible. Starting from an established 2D model, the chosen method is
characterized and applied to realistic in vitro situations. A to
date not investigated parameter dependency is included and tackled by
means of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) techniques. It reveals a
strong, frequency-dependent influence of uncertain parameters on the
modeling result.