Pulsed electric fields for regeneration of injured spinal cord: calcium oscillations modeling

The European RISEUP project, funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Open of Horizon Europe Program 2020, explores the possibility of applying pulsed electric fields to repair Spinal Cord Injuries, taking advantage of the well-established effect of cell membrane electropermeabilization. An Electro Pulsed Bio-hybrid (EPB) device delivers specific electrical stimulation protocols, based on microsecond pulsed electric fields, that support and guide the differentiation of stem cells to generate a cell bridge on the lesion. Stem cell differentiation is regulated by the intracellular calcium concentration which is considered a possible target of the interaction with the pulsed electric field. In this context, multiphysic and multiscale computational modelling is a key tool to understand and predict the outcomes of in vitro experiments on stem cells.