Circuital modelling for electroporation

The application of intense, short-duration pulsed electric fields to biological membranes induces an increase of their conductivity to external molecules, an effect termed electroporation (EP), which is currently exploited in several biomedical, industrial and environmental applications. The study of interaction mechanisms between pulsed electric fields and biological structures is addressed by experiments and modelling. In the latter case, analytical, circuital, numerical and molecular dynamics approaches have been proposed in the literature, providing complementary information on the EP phenomenon. In this paper, an overview on circuital modelling of EP is presented. In spite of the simplifications adopted from both a physical and electrical point of view, this approach is useful to perform rapid analysis on broad ranges of electrical parameters and provides aid to the optimization of the experimental design.