New Findings Surprise Scientists: Skin Cells Emit Slow-Motion Electric Pulses

When skin cells are wounded, they respond with slow, deliberate pulses of electricity — a phenomenon scientists are just beginning to understand.

These electrical signals, described in a study published March 25 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, move much more slowly than nerve impulses, yet can be detected up to 500 micrometers away — roughly the distance of 40 neighboring cells. Researchers believe these electric pulses may serve as a warning system, prompting nearby cells to prepare for wound healing.

Although researchers have known for over a century that injuries alter the electrical fields across skin tissues, the discovery that epithelial cells — such as skin and kidney cells — can produce actual spikes of electrical activity, similar to nerve cells, is a groundbreaking insight.

“This finding shifts our understanding of how epithelial cells communicate,” says Min Zhao, a cell biologist at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. “We now see that they have their unique electrical language”.

Capturing the Hidden Signals

To uncover this phenomenon, Sun-Min Yu and Steve Granick of the University of Massachusetts Amherst conducted experiments using human skin cells and dog kidney cells — both types of epithelial cells — cultured on chips lined with electrodes. After deliberately damaging a few cells with a laser, they tracked tiny shifts in electric activity.

The researchers observed that the electric spikes generated were comparable in voltage to those seen in nerve cells, but with a much slower rhythm. While a nerve impulse lasts just milliseconds, these epithelial pulses took 1 to 2 seconds to complete — so slow that the software initially failed to detect them.

“The software was built to catch fast signals like those from neurons,” Yu explains. “We had to remove the time constraint — once we did, the pulses became clear”.These slow pulses continued for over five hours, suggesting they may play a long-term role in orchestrating tissue repair. They might prompt surrounding cells to remove damaged neighbors and begin the regeneration process.

Why Slow Signals Make Sense

Unlike nerve cells, which manage instant reactions, epithelial cells operate on a much longer timescale — healing over days or even weeks. That difference in function is mirrored in their signaling speed.

“This discovery introduces a new temporal layer to our understanding of wound healing,” says Zhao. “It challenges the idea that bioelectric signals are less significant than chemical or mechanical cues”.

What’s Next? Exploring 3D Communication

The current research focused on 2D layers of cells, just one cell thick. The next step, Yu says, is to study how these electrical pulses behave in three-dimensional tissues and whether they play a role in intercellular communication across different cell types.

This slow-motion signaling could reveal new pathways for promoting healing, and further prove that electricity is just as fundamental to biology as chemicals and genes.