Batteries, not brains: Bioelectricity and the new map of how bodies heal

For more than a century, biology has told a chemical story. Genes code proteins; proteins trigger cascades; drugs fit receptors like keys in locks. Electricity, when it appeared at all, was a specialist subplot: the flash of a neuron firing, the jolt that restarts a heart. But a quieter current has been running beneath that narrative, one that treats cells less like sacks of molecules and more like tiny batteries. Across embryos, wounds and organs, patterns of voltage appear to guide what tissues become and how they repair themselves. This field, known as bioelectric signalling, is reshaping how scientists think about development and healing... and what medicine might do next.

At its simplest, bioelectricity is the difference in electrical charge across a cell’s membrane. Every living cell maintains such a difference, measured in millivolts, by pumping ions (charged atoms like sodium, potassium, calcium and chloride) in and out through protein gates called ion channels. Neurons and muscle cells exploit rapid swings in voltage to send messages or contract. But most cells are electrically active too, only more slowly. Their voltages drift and settle into patterns that can span tissues and persist for days. Those patterns, researchers argue, are not noise. They are instructions.

The quiet voltage beneath life

Imagine an embryo not as a miniature person but as a landscape of electrical hills and valleys. Regions of higher or lower voltage can mark where an eye will form, where a limb will bud, or where the head will go. Alter those voltages and anatomy can change. In animal studies, tweaking ion channels has produced extra limbs, shifted organ positions or prompted regeneration in species that normally cannot regrow parts. The implication is not that electricity replaces genes, but that it works alongside them, an organising layer that tells cells how to interpret genetic instructions in context.

This idea unsettles because it challenges a familiar hierarchy. If chemistry and genetics are the “brains” of biology, electricity looks like the wiring. Yet wiring can determine what circuits do. A heart cell and a skin cell share the same genome, but their electrical states differ. Change those states, and cells can be nudged to behave differently – to proliferate, migrate or specialise. Healing, in this view, is less about adding growth factors and more about restoring the right electrical map.

A short history of shocks and sparks

The notion that electricity animates life has deep roots. In the 18th century, experiments with frogs’ legs twitching under sparks fuelled debates about “animal electricity”. By the 19th century, clinicians were applying crude electrical currents to treat pain or paralysis, often with theatrical flair and scant evidence. As molecular biology rose in the 20th century, such approaches drifted to the margins, tainted by quackery.

Yet mainstream medicine never abandoned electricity entirely. Cardiac pacemakers, defibrillators and deep brain stimulators are now routine. What is new is the attempt to systematise electrical signalling across non-neural tissues and to read it as information, not just stimulation. Modern tools can measure tiny voltage differences across living tissues and manipulate ion channels with precision. The old shocks are giving way to subtler nudges.

How voltage guides healing

When skin is cut, an electrical field forms across the wound edge. Cells sense this field and migrate towards it, a phenomenon sometimes called galvanotaxis. Disrupt the field and healing slows; reinforce it and closure can speed up. Similar effects have been observed in bone repair and nerve regrowth. In the heart, abnormal electrical patterns underlie arrhythmias, while in inflamed tissues, shifts in ion flow can amplify or dampen immune responses.

Researchers are exploring whether restoring “healthy” electrical patterns can calm chronic inflammation, guide nerve repair after injury or improve recovery after surgery. In the laboratory, applying specific voltages has influenced stem cells to differentiate into bone, cartilage or nerve cells. In animals, electrical cues have helped regrow damaged spinal connections or improve wound closure. The promise is tantalising: therapies that coax the body to heal itself by resetting its electrical compass.

Tools of the trade: from patches to pills

How might this work in practice? One approach uses wearables or dressings that apply gentle electrical stimulation to wounds. Some are already in clinical use for hard-to-heal ulcers, delivering microcurrents too small to be felt. Another involves implanted devices that stimulate nerves or tissues to modulate inflammation or pain – an area sometimes branded “electroceuticals”. Unlike drugs, which flood the body, these devices can target specific circuits.

There is also a pharmacological route. Ion channels can be opened or closed by drugs, altering membrane potentials indirectly. Many existing medicines, from anaesthetics to heart drugs, already act on ion channels, though not with bioelectric patterning in mind. The emerging idea is to design channel-targeting drugs that reshape electrical landscapes over time, steering healing processes without the need for hardware.

Evidence, expectations and the placebo problem

With promise comes caution. Electrical interventions are notoriously hard to study. Blinding participants is difficult when devices tingle or buzz, and placebo effects can be strong, particularly in pain and wound care. Measuring outcomes such as “better healing” can be subjective unless rigorously defined. The history of electrotherapy includes many false dawns.

The strongest evidence so far sits where electricity’s role is already established: cardiac rhythm management and certain neural applications. In wound healing, small trials suggest benefits for specific chronic ulcers, but results are mixed and depend on protocols. For broader claims – regenerating nerves, reprogramming tissues – much of the work remains preclinical. Animal models can regenerate in ways humans cannot, and translating voltage maps from a salamander to a person is not straightforward.

Researchers emphasise the need for large, well-controlled trials that compare electrical interventions against best standard care, with objective endpoints and long follow-up. A convincing breakthrough would show not just faster healing, but durable functional improvement, reproducible across centres, with a clear mechanism linking voltage changes to biological outcomes.

Hypothesis versus therapy

It is tempting to speak of bioelectricity as a master code, but most scientists resist such grand claims. Electrical signals interact with biochemical pathways in complex feedback loops. Change a voltage and gene expression shifts; alter genes and voltages follow. Untangling cause and effect is hard. Inflammation, for instance, can change ion channel activity, which then alters electrical patterns that feed back into immune behaviour. Is electricity driving the process or responding to it? Often, both.

This distinction matters clinically. A hypothesis about patterning is not a therapy until it reliably changes patient outcomes. The field is littered with elegant diagrams and animal data that have yet to survive the clinic. Keeping that separation clear – between what seems plausible and what has been proven – is essential if bioelectric medicine is to avoid repeating the mistakes of its past.

Beyond wounds: hearts, nerves and inflammation

Where might the next gains come? In cardiology, refining electrical control could reduce arrhythmias without the side effects of drugs. In nerve injury, patterned stimulation might encourage regrowth while preventing aberrant pain signals. In inflammatory diseases, modulating electrical cues could nudge immune cells towards resolution rather than attack.

There is also interest in using bioelectric signals diagnostically. Changes in tissue voltage can precede visible damage, offering early warning of disease or poor healing. Wearable sensors might one day map these signals in real time, guiding personalised interventions.

What we still don’t know

Despite rapid progress, fundamental questions remain. How are large-scale electrical patterns stored and maintained across tissues? How do cells “read” these patterns and convert them into gene expression changes? Can we safely manipulate voltages over long periods without unintended effects? And how individual are these electrical maps – do they vary person to person in ways that demand tailored treatments?

There is also the ethical dimension. Devices that influence bodily processes electrically raise questions about control, consent and long-term dependence. As with any powerful tool, governance will matter.

A future written in volts?

Bioelectric signalling does not overthrow chemistry or genetics; it adds another layer to the story of life. Seeing bodies as electrical systems alongside molecular ones offers a fresh way to think about healing: not just patching damage, but restoring patterns. Whether that vision translates into a new generation of reliable therapies will depend on the hard work of trials, replication and restraint.

For now, the field sits at an intriguing threshold. The batteries are there, quietly humming inside every cell. Learning how to read and recharge them without sparks flying may yet redraw the map of medicine.