Pulsed Electric Fields for Regeneration of Injured Spinal Cord: Multiphysic and Multiscale Modeling of Virtual Stem Cells

Recently, increasing interest has been directed toward the use of pulsed electric fields in biomedical applications to promote cell regeneration and differentiation. Central to this is spinal cord injury (SCI) research within the European Project RISEUP, in which an electrified, implantable scaffold-device, able to stimulate stem cells through ultrashort, intense electrical pulses (μsPEFs), is under development for SCI regeneration. The alteration of ionic fluxes across electroporated cell membranes can significantly affect intracellular calcium levels, which play a vital role in the proliferation and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Additionally, another critical aspect of this research is assessing the potential influence of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mu$</tex> sPEFs on the spontaneous neuronal activity of induced neuronal stem cells (iNSCs). To achieve this, this study presents multiphysic and multiscale models of a 2D virtual MSC and a 2D virtual iNSC, designed to predict the biophysical effects on cells following <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mu \text{sPEF}$</tex> exposure.