The electrical conductivity of human tissue at low frequencies is discussed
when a uniform electric field is applied to some tissue containing many ce
lls. Human tissue is described as a suspension of particles in a conducting
solution. Relations are derived for the apparent conductivity of a cell su
rrounded by a membrane. These relations can he used to estimate the accurac
y of a model that considers the cell as a non-conducting particle.
Usually, a tissue is composed of several types of particles. A relationship
that expresses the effective conductivity of a suspension of one type of e
llipsoidal particles could be found in the literature. The orientation of t
he particles could be uniform or they could be randomly distributed. For no
n-conducting particles, this expression is known as Archie's law. The expre
ssion is extended such that also the effective conductivity of a suspension
of various types of particles can be calculated. The result is evaluated f
or the cortex of the brain using experimental data given in the literature.
(C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.