Anomalous properties of heat diffusion in living tissue caused by branching artery network. Qualitative description

Abstract

We analyze the effect of blood flow through large arteries of peripheral circulation on heat transfer in living tissue. Blood flow in such arteries gives rise to fast heat propagation over large scales, which is described in terms of heat superdiffusion. The corresponding bioheat heat equation is derived. In particular, we show that under local strong heating of a small tissue domain the temperature distribution inside the surrounding tissue is affected substantially by heat superdiffusion.