Numerical calculation of streaming potential around osteocytes under human gait loading.

Streaming potential is a type of stress-generated potential in bone that affects the electrical environment of osteocytes and may play a role in bone remodeling. Because the electrical environment around osteocytes has been difficult to measure experimentally until now, a numerical solid-liquid-streaming potential coupling method was proposed to analyze the streaming potential generated by bone deformation in the lacunae and canaliculus network (LCN) of the bone. Using this method, the cellular shear stress caused by liquid flow on the osteocyte surface was first calculated, and the results were consistent with those reported in the literature. Subsequently, the streaming potentials in the LCN caused by bone matrix deformation under an external gait load were calculated numerically. The results showed that the streaming potential increased slowly in the lacuna and relatively rapidly in the canaliculus and that the streaming potential increased with a decrease in the radius or an increase in the length of the canaliculus. The results also showed that relatively large gaps between the lacunae and osteocytes could induce higher streaming potentials under the same loading.