Nonlinear Regression Analysis of Impedance Data from Dental Hard Tissues

Abstract

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