It's electric...

Borgens et al., 1981

The idea of living biological systems possessing electrical properties has been known for well over two centuries. To most biologists, the though of electrically excitable cells such as neurons and muscle first come to mind but what else is electrical about living systems and is this property truly important beyond an organisms ability to perceive and respond to the outside world? Original works on the subject of "bioelectricity" can be dated back to the physicist, Luigi Galvani, who in the mid-18th century performed the spectacular but controversial experiment where frog legs were made to twitch upon application of electricity. This seemingly convincing reanimation of life with electricity was at the time greatly refuted and to some extent shown to be artifactual by the prominent physicist, Alessandro Volta (think inventor of battery and major contributor to our current understanding of electricity). Strangely, it wasn't really until about 30 years ago that a handful of people began looking back into bioelectricity and its endogenous roles in physiology and perhaps more interestingly, its therapeutic potential in medicine. Since then, electric fields have been shown to be involved in a myriad of events in an organisms life but how it works is still completely unknown and still controversial.

There are several possible directions to go with this subject but I think a good one to look at is a somewhat seminal and relatively straightforward study where application of electric fields was shown to enhance spinal repair.

• Borgens, spinal repair Science 1981