NONLINEAR-REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF IMPEDANCE DATA FROM DENTAL HARD TISSUES

Impedance measurements have been used to characterize a wide variety o f biological systems, including bacterial suspensions, aqueous solutio ns of biological polyelectrolytes, and biological tissues. This paper describes how the impedance response of biological systems can be mode led and analyzed numerically using networks of passive electrical comp onents. The advantage of this approach is that the entire frequency re sponse can be represented accurately by a small number of discrete com ponents with associated magnitudes. The methods of model selection and nonlinear regression of the data using an appropriate model are descr ibed and illustrated using typical impedance responses of dentine and enamel sections obtained from extracted adult human teeth.