Non-Debye dielectric relaxation in biological structures arises from their fractal nature.

What differentiates biological tissues from one another, thereby allowing their accomplishment of a physiological function, is their organization at supracellular and cellular levels. We developed general dielectric models for Cantorian (or treelike) fractal networks of transmission lines that mimic supracellular organization in numerous biological tissues and tissue surfaces, and which are compatible with both in vitro and in vivo measuring techniques. By varying a set of adjustable physical and geometrical parameters pertaining to the structure, we could numerically reproduce a variety of dielectric dispersion curves-most of them of a composite type-that suitably described experimental data from relatively organized biological tissues. We therefore conclude that the well-documented non-Debye dielectric behavior of biological structures reflects their self-similar architecture.