Dynamic model of tissue electroporation on the basis of biological dispersion and Joule heating

Electroporation is a complex, iterative, and nonlinear phenomenon that is often studied by numerical simulations. In recent years, tissue electroporation simulations have been performed using static models. However, the results of a static model simulation are restricted to a fixed protocol signature of the pulsed electric field. This paper describes a novel dynamic model of tissue electroporation that also includes tissue dispersion and temperature to allow time-domain simulations. We implemented the biological dispersion of potato tubers and thermal analysis in a commercial finite element method software. A cell electroporation model was adapted to account for the increase in tissue conductivity. The model yielded twelve parameters, divided into three dynamic states of electroporation. Thermal analysis describes the dependence of tissue conductivity on temperature. The model parameters were evaluated using experiments with vegetal tissue (Solanum tuberosum) under electrochemotherapy protocols. The proposed model can accurately predict the conductivity of tissue under electroporation from 10 kV/m to 100 kV/m. A negligible thermal effect was observed at 100 kV/m, with a 0.89 {\deg}C increase. We believe that the proposed model is suitable for describing the electroporation current on a tissue scale and also for providing a hint on the effects on the cell membrane.