Toward Controlled Electrical Stimulation for Wound Healing Based on a Precision Layered Skin Model

ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2020 Dec 21;3(12):8901-8910. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.0c01190. Epub 2020 Nov 16.

Abstract

Bioelectricity performs vital functions in the human body. When skin is damaged, the endogenous electric field will orient toward the center of wounds, guiding the migration of relevant cells and stimulating the secretion of growth factors. A large number of experiments have indicated that external electric stimuli have significant positive influences on wound healing. However, the mechanism of this therapy remains unclear, and the current selection of parameters for electric stimuli tends to be arbitrary or empirical, making it inefficient and ineffective. From the perspective of bioelectricity and electrochemistry, the mechanism of electric stimuli is investigated in detail based on a sectioned multilayer model in this work, and an electric stimuli window is obtained in terms of frequency, duty cycle, voltage, and electric charge and verified experimentally. This model provides general guidance for the optimization of electrical stimuli therapy for wound healing.

Keywords: electrical stimulation; electrochemistry; parameter optimization; skin layered model; stimuli window.