Electrical stimulation of biological samples such as tissues and cell cultures attracts growing attention due to its capability of enhancing cell activity, proliferation and differentiation. <br>Eventually, profound knowledge of the underlying mechanisms paves the way for innovative therapeutic devices. <br>Capacitive coupling is one option of delivering electric fields to biological samples and has advantages with regard to biocompatibility.<br>However, the mechanism of interaction is not well understood.<br>Experimental findings could be related to voltage-gated channels, which are triggered by changes of the transmembrane potential (TMP).<br>Numerical simulations by the Finite Element method (FEM) provide a possibility to estimate the TMP.<br>For realistic simulations of <i>in vitro</i> electric stimulation experiments, a bridge from the mesoscopic level down to the cellular level has to be found.<br>A special challenge poses the ratio between the cell membrane (a few <i>nm</i>) and the general setup (some <i>cm</i>).<br>Hence, a full discretization of the cell membrane becomes prohibitively expensive for 3D simulations.<br>We suggest using an approximate FE method that makes 3D multi-scale simulations possible.<br>Starting from an established 2D model, the chosen method is characterized and applied to realistic <i>in vitro</i> situations.<br>A to date not investigated parameter dependency is included and tackled by means of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) techniques.<br>It reveals a strong, frequency-dependent influence of uncertain parameters on the modeling result.<br><br>

Electrical stimulation of biological samples such as tissues and cell cultures attracts growing attention due to its capability of enhancing cell activity, proliferation and differentiation. <br>Eventually, profound knowledge of the underlying mechanisms paves the way for innovative therapeutic devices. <br>Capacitive coupling is one option of delivering electric fields to biological samples and has advantages with regard to biocompatibility.<br>However, the mechanism of interaction is not well understood.<br>Experimental findings could be related to voltage-gated channels, which are triggered by changes of the transmembrane potential (TMP).<br>Numerical simulations by the Finite Element method (FEM) provide a possibility to estimate the TMP.<br>For realistic simulations of <i>in vitro</i> electric stimulation experiments, a bridge from the mesoscopic level down to the cellular level has to be found.<br>A special challenge poses the ratio between the cell membrane (a few <i>nm</i>) and the general setup (some <i>cm</i>).<br>Hence, a full discretization of the cell membrane becomes prohibitively expensive for 3D simulations.<br>We suggest using an approximate FE method that makes 3D multi-scale simulations possible.<br>Starting from an established 2D model, the chosen method is characterized and applied to realistic <i>in vitro</i> situations.<br>A to date not investigated parameter dependency is included and tackled by means of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) techniques.<br>It reveals a strong, frequency-dependent influence of uncertain parameters on the modeling result.<br><br>