Patent ID: 8706466

Claim:
A computer-based method for computing a spatial distribution, a time series, or a spatial distribution and a time series of at least one electrical variable for at least a portion of an electrophysiological system that comprises a biological membrane which comprises: (i) an intracellular side, (ii) an extracellular side, and (iii) at least two membrane regions with different electrical properties, said method comprising: (I) modeling said at least a portion of the electrophysiological system that comprises a biological membrane, wherein said modeling comprises: (A) inputting data to a computer regarding (i) structure and dimensions of said at least a portion of the electrophysiological system, and (ii) at least one electrical property of each of the two membrane regions; (B) simulating, using the computer, at least one spatial charge distribution for said at least a portion of the electrophysiological system without first determining and differentiating an electrical potential distribution, wherein simulating comprises using electric fields to move charge across faces of calculation cells, wherein at least some electric fields which move charge across faces of calculation cells are conservative fields originating from sources whose effects on the charge distribution are represented by a 1/r 2 law where r represents a distance to a quantity of charge; (II) using the computer to determine the spatial distribution, the time series, or the spatial distribution and the time series of the electrical variable from the at least one spatial charge distribution simulated in step (I); and (III) displaying the spatial distribution, the time series, or the spatial distribution and the time series of the electrical variable determined in step (II).