Computation of currents induced by ELF electric fields in anisotropic human tissues using the Finite Integration Technique (FIT)

Abstract

In the recent years, the task of estimating the currents induced within the human body by environmental electromagnetic fields has received increased attention from scientists around the world. While important progress was made in this direction, the unpredictable behaviour of living biological tissue made it difficult to quantify its reaction to electromagnetic fields and has kept the problem open. A successful alternative to the very difficult one of performing measurements is that of computing the fields within a human body model using numerical methods implemented in a software code. One of the difficulties is represented by the fact that some tissue types exhibit an anisotropic character with respect to their dielectric properties. Our work consists of computing currents induced by extremely low frequency (ELF) electric fields in anisotropic muscle tissues using in this respect, a human body model extended with muscle fibre orientations as well as an extended version of the Finite Integration Technique (FIT) able to compute fully anisotropic dielectric properties.