Tag: medical technology

Categories : Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

‘Windscreen Wiper’ Tool for Laparoscopes Allows Uninterrupted View

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A Brigham Young University student has developed a ‘windscreen wiper’ tool for laparoscopes that continuously keeps the camera end clean.

The laparoscope, a slender rod with a camera tip, allows doctors to see inside a body during surgery. Laparoscopes have made surgery less invasive and easier for surgeons and patients, but the device does have a problematic drawback: it must be removed, cleaned, and reinserted multiple times during surgery.

Engineering graduate student Jacob Sheffield has developed a tiny origami-based device that serves as a miniature windshield wiper for laparoscope camera lenses. When installed, the device eliminates the need to remove and reinsert laparoscopes every five or so minutes during surgery, which would allow surgeons to focus on the patient without disruptions.

“It’s like driving the car in the rain,” Sheffield explained. “If you can focus on driving and not on reaching out the window to wipe off the windshield with your hand, you can keep your focus on what’s important.”

His technology, developed with mentoring from BYU professor Larry Howell in the Compliant Mechanisms Research Lab and help from ME undergrad Amanda Lytle, is called LaparoVision. The disposable mechanism snaps on to existing laparoscopes and features a one-piece curved wiper that conforms to the cylindrical walls of the medical tool. The wiper, which is so small it can rest on the end of a finger, is actuated by a trigger outside of the body.

The innovative concept was impressive enough to earn Sheffield the title of 2021 Student Innovator of the Year at BYU, an award which also provides kickstarter money to develop a project.

“It’s extremely helpful to get that funding through BYU awards programs and the feedback you get from judges is invaluable,” Sheffield said. “My advice for future applicants is even if you don’t win or get money out of it, use the deadline of the competitions to drive progress for your idea.”

For Sheffield, the idea came about when he was meeting with surgeons across the country on other medical technologies being tested in the CMR lab. The issue of laparoscope removal and cleaning kept coming up in their conversations. The tool is used in 5 million surgeries every year in the US alone, and in roughly 90% of those procedures, the device must be removed.

Sheffield said that, according to many surgeons and studies, every five to eight minutes the device has to be pulled out and the lens wiped clean. With operating rooms costing $62 a minute, those fairly regular removals prove costly and frustrating. However, even more importantly, withdrawal of the scope at a critical time can cause serious risks for the patient.

“There is a high correlation in keeping the scope clean, maintaining surgical focus and ensuring timely and safe patient outcomes,” Sheffield said. “But it’s not just about improving efficiency during surgery; every time you lose vision it could be a critical part in the surgery where you make an incision and get blood on the lens and you can’t see what’s going on.”

Sheffield is currently in talks to license the technology and has now formed a startup (Bloom Surgical) to bring the device to market. Currently he is focusing on showing that the device is reliable and sage, and working towards getting FDA clearance for the tool.

Source: Brigham Young University

Categories : Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

New Printable Biosensor Could Guide Surgery

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Surgeons may soon be able to pinpoint critical regions in tissues during surgery without interruption thanks to a new, 3D-printable biosensor.

Associate Professor Chi Hwan Lee created the biosensor, which enables both recording and imaging of tissues and organs during a surgical operation. Research on the biosensor was published in Nature Communications.

Prof Lee explained the benefits of such devices: “Simultaneous recording and imaging could be useful during heart surgery in localising critical regions and guiding surgical interventions such as a procedure for restoring normal heart rhythm.”

Existing methods to simultaneously record and image tissues and organs have proven challenging because other sensors used for recording typically interrupt the imaging process.

“To this end, we have developed an ultra-soft, thin and stretchable biosensor that is capable of seamlessly interfacing with the curvilinear surface of organs; for example the heart, even under large mechanical deformations, for example cardiac cycles,” Prof Lee said. “This unique feature enables the simultaneous recording and imaging, which allows us to accurately indicate the origin of disease conditions: in this example, real-time observations on the propagation of myocardial infarction in 3D.”

The biosensors are made of soft bio-inks and are rapid-prototyped to a custom-fit design, fitting a variety of sizes and shapes of an organ. The bio-inks used are softer than tissue, and can stretch without experiencing sensor degradation but also have reliable natural adhesion to the wet surface of organs without needing extra adhesives. The formulation and synthesis of the bio-inks was thanks to Kwan-Soo Lee’s research group in Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The researchers have produced a number of prototype biosensors using different shapes, sizes and configurations. Craig Goergen, the Leslie A Geddes Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering in Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, and his laboratory group have tested the prototypes in mice and pigs in vivo.

“Professor Goergen and his team were successfully able to identify the exact location of myocardial infarctions over time using the prototype biosensors,” Prof Lee said. “In addition to these tests, they also evaluated the biocompatibility and anti-biofouling properties of the biosensors, as well as the effects of the biosensors on cardiac function. They have shown no significant adverse effects.”

Source: Purdue University

Journal information: Kim, B., et al. (2021) Rapid custom prototyping of soft poroelastic biosensor for simultaneous epicardial recording and imaging. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23959-3.

Categories : Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

Device Uses Body to Charge Wearable Tech

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A team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has devised an innovative way to charge wearable devices such as medical monitors — by transmitting power through the body to other devices.

Advancements in wearable technology are reshaping the way we live, work and play, and also how healthcare is delivered and received. Wearable devices include wristbands, smartwatches, wearable mobile sensors, and other mobile hub medical devices that collect a large range of data from blood sugar and exercise routines to sleep and mood. 

Such devices can help patients and providers manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart conditions, and chronic pain. According to the Pew Research Center, 60% of US adults reported tracking their weight, diet, or exercise routine; 33% of US adults track health symptoms or indicators such as blood pressure, blood sugar, or sleep patterns; and 8% of adults specifically use medical devices, such as glucose meters.

One major obstacle of using wearables is keeping these devices properly and conveniently powered. The more wearable devices are worn, the more often there is the need to charge multiple batteries. Many users find it cumbersome to charge numerous devices every day, and inconvenient service disruptions occur when batteries run out.

A research team, led by Associate Professor Jerald Yoo from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the N.1 Institute for Health at NUS, has come up with an innovative solution to these problems. Their technology utilises the human body as a medium for power transmission, enabling a single device, such as a mobile phone placed in the pocket, to wirelessly power other wearable devices on a user’s body. The team’s novel system has an added advantage – it can harvest unused energy from electronics in a typical home or office environment to power the wearables.

Their achievement was first published in the journal Nature Electronics on 10 June 2021. It is the first of its kind to be established among existing literature on electronic wearables.

Power transmission through the body

To extend the battery life of wearable devices, power transmission and energy harvesting approaches are required. However, current approaches for powering up body area wearables are hampered by short distances, intervening obstacles and unstable power delivery. As such, none of the current methods are suitable for the sustainable provision of power to wearables placed around the entire human body.

The NUS approach turned the obstacle of the human body into an advantage by designing a receiver and transmitter system that uses the human body as a medium for power transmission and energy harvesting. Each receiver and transmitter contains a chip that is used as a springboard to extend coverage over the entire body.

The power transmitter need only be on a single power source, such as a smart watch, while multiple power receivers can be placed anywhere on the person’s body. The system then harnesses energy from the source to power multiple wearables on the user’s body via a process termed as body-coupled power transmission. In this way, only one device needs to be charged, and the rest of the wearable devices can be powered from that source. The team’s experiments showed that a single, fully-charged power source to power up to 10 wearable devices on the body, for a duration of over 10 hours.

The researchers also found that typical office and home environments have parasitic electromagnetic (EM) waves that people are constantly exposed to from sources such as running computers. To tap this energy, their novel receiver scavenges the EM waves from the environment, and through a process referred to as body-coupled powering, the human body is able to harvest this energy to power the wearable devices.

Smaller wearables without batteries

On the benefits of his team’s method, Assoc Prof Yoo said, “Batteries are among the most expensive components in wearable devices, and they add bulk to the design. Our unique system has the potential to omit the need for batteries, thereby enabling manufacturers to miniaturise the gadgets while reducing production cost significantly. More excitingly, without the constraints of batteries, our development can enable the next generation wearable applications, such as ECG patches, gaming accessories, and remote diagnostics.”

The NUS team will continue to improve the efficiency of their transmitter/receiver system, so that hopefully any given power-transmitting device such as a smartphone can extend the battery life of other wearable technologies, some of which, like medical monitors, can be quite important.

Source: National University of Singapore

Journal reference: Li, J., et al. (2021) Body-coupled power transmission and energy harvesting. Nature Electronics. doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00592-y. 

Categories : Cardiovascular DiseaseTags :

New Measurement of Heart Function Could Benefit High-risk Heart Patients

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A new measurement of heart function developed at UVA Health could improve survival for people with heart failure by identifying high-risk patients who require tailored treatments, according to a new study.

The study is the first to show a survival benefit from wireless pressure monitoring sensors implanted in the pulmonary arteries. Pulmonary artery proportional pulse pressure, or PAPP, is a new measure of heart function that can identify patients at very high risk of hospitalisation or death from systolic heart failure or pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the heart and lungs).

Previous work showed that patients with low PAPPs were at much higher risk than those with higher PAPPs, so the researchers tested whether these benefits were maintained in patients undergoing implantation of pressure sensors that continuously monitor pressure in the pulmonary artery.

“We found that PAPP is a very good measure of how stiff or compliant the pulmonary arteries are. The stiffness of the pulmonary arteries determines how much resistance the right side of the heart has overcome to pump blood effectively to the lungs,” said Sula Mazimba, MD, MPH, a heart failure expert at UVA Health and the School of Medicine. “The importance of this simple measure is that it can identify patients that are at greatest risk of dying or being hospitalised. This allows us to tailor more aggressive treatments.”

Heart failure causes more than 1 million hospital admissions each year, and approximately half of patients die within five years of diagnosis.

The new study evaluated the benefits of PAPP monitoring in patients with systolic heart failure, where the left ventricle is weak, as well as those with pulmonary hypertension.

To find out if PAPP monitoring could predict outcomes in these patients, Dr Mazimba and colleagues analysed data from 550 participants in the CHAMPION clinical trial, whose participants were randomised to receive an implantable, wireless heart monitor called the CardioMEMS HF System.

They found that participants with a below-average PAPP had a significantly higher risk of hospitalisation or death compared with those with higher PAPPs. Furthermore, the monitoring  reduced the risk of death for those with low PAPPs by 46% annually during two to three years of follow-up.

“The implications of this study are highly significant,” said co-investigator Kenneth Bilchick, MD, MS, a cardiologist at UVA Health. “We now have identified a specific group of patients who appear to have a marked improvement in survival with implantation of these pulmonary artery wireless monitors. As a result, the findings of the study could maximise the impact of this technology for a large number of potential candidate patients. This is an excellent example of how secondary analyses of clinical databases maintained by the National Institutes of Health can result in novel and personalised approaches to patient care.”

The researchers say further study is necessary to gauge the full potential of PAPP monitoring to improve care for patients with heart failure, but early results were encouraging.

“In the past, the function of the right chamber of the heart was often ignored and considered to be inconsequential to the overall performance of the heart, but we are now learning that this is not the case,” Dr Mazimba said. “Having tools that signal when the right side of the heart is under strain may aid clinicians to adopt timely tailored treatments for heart-failure patients.”

Source: UVA Health

Categories : COVID Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

A COVID Vaccine Without the Jab

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University of Queensland scientists used a ‘patch’ to deliver a US-developed COVID vaccine without the jab, and successfully protected mice from the virus.

The vaccine candidate from University of Texas Hexapro was delivered via the high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) and provided protection against COVID disease with a single, painless ‘click’ from a handheld applicator.

Dr David Muller, from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, said the vaccine patch produced strong immune responses that were shown to be effective when the mice were exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

“When the Hexapro vaccine is delivered via HD-MAP applicator – rather than a needle – it produces better and faster immune responses,” Dr Muller said.

“It also neutralises multiple variants, including the UK and South Africa variants.

“And it’s much more user-friendly than a needle – you simply ‘click’ an applicator on the skin, and 5000 microscopic projections almost-imperceptibly deliver vaccine into the skin.

“The UQ team, together with Vaxxas, hope to take the technology to the world and are looking for funding opportunities to accelerate to clinical trials as soon as possible.”
Dr Muller said that Hexapro, delivered by the high-density microarray patch, could dramatically assist global vaccine rollout effort, particularly for billions of vulnerable people in low- and middle-income countries.

“We’ve shown this vaccine, when dry-coated on a patch, is stable for at least 30 days at 25 degrees Celsius and one week at 40 degrees, so it doesn’t have the cold chain requirements of some of the current options.”

High-density microarray patch (HD-MAP)

Vaxxas was founded in 2011 with the help of University of Queensland. The company’s president and CEO, David L Hoey, said he was extremely excited about the findings.

“These results are extremely clear – vaccination by HD-MAP produces much stronger and more protective immune responses against COVID-19 in model systems than via needle or syringe,” he said.

“We thank and recognise our incredible research collaborators at UQ for these important findings.

“The prospect of having a single-dose vaccine, that could be easily distributed and self-administered, would greatly improve global pandemic vaccination capabilities,” said Hoey

The research is currently undergoing peer review and has been published in BioRxiv (DOI: 10.1101/2021.05.30.446357).

Source: The University of Queensland

Categories : Implants and Prostheses Metabolic DisordersTags :

Tiny Implant Shelters Diabetes-curing Cells

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A team of researchers have developed a miniscule device that allows them to implant insulin-secreting cells into diabetic mice, which secrete insulin in response to blood sugar without being destroyed by the immune system.

The findings are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“We can take a person’s skin or fat cells, make them into stem cells and then grow those stem cells into insulin-secreting cells,” said co-senior investigator Jeffrey R Millman, PhD, an associate professor of medicine at Washington University. “The problem is that in people with Type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks those insulin-secreting cells and destroys them. To deliver those cells as a therapy, we need devices to house cells that secrete insulin in response to blood sugar, while also protecting those cells from the immune response.”

Prof Millman, also an associate professor of biomedical engineering, had previously developed and honed a method to make stem cells and then grow them into insulin-secreting beta cells. Prof Millman previously used those beta cells to reverse diabetes in mice, but it was not clear how the insulin-secreting cells might safely be implanted into people with diabetes.

Prof Millman explained why the new device’s structure was so important.

“The device, which is about the width of a few strands of hair, is micro-porous—with openings too small for other cells to squeeze into—so the insulin-secreting cells consequently can’t be destroyed by immune cells, which are larger than the openings,” he said. “One of challenges in this scenario is to protect the cells inside of the implant without starving them. They still need nutrients and oxygen from the blood to stay alive. With this device, we seem to have made something in what you might call a Goldilocks zone, where the cells could feel just right inside the device and remain healthy and functional, releasing insulin in response to blood sugar levels.”

Millman’s laboratory collaborated with researchers from the laboratory of Minglin Ma, PhD, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell and the study’s other co-senior investigator. Prof Ma has been working to develop biomaterials that can help implant beta cells safely into animals and, eventually, people with Type 1 diabetes.

In recent years a number of implants have been tried to varying degrees of success. For this study, the team led by Prof Ma developed a nanofibre-integrated cell encapsulation (NICE) device. They filled those implants with insulin-secreting beta cells grown from stem cells and then implanted the devices into the abdomens of diabetic mice.

“The combined structural, mechanical and chemical properties of the device we used kept other cells in the mice from completely isolating the implant and, essentially, choking it off and making it ineffective,” Prof Ma explained. “The implants floated freely inside the animals, and when we removed them after about six months, the insulin-secreting cells inside the implants still were functioning. And importantly, it is a very robust and safe device.”

The cells in the implants continued to secrete insulin and control blood sugar in the mice for up to 200 days — even without any immunosuppressive drugs being administered.
“We’d rather not have to suppress someone’s immune system with drugs, because that would make the patient vulnerable to infections,” Prof Millman said. “The device we used in these experiments protected the implanted cells from the mice’s immune systems, and we believe similar devices could work the same way in people with insulin-dependent diabetes.”

Profs Millman and Ma stress that a considerable amount of work is needed before the device can be trialled in a clinical setting.

Source: Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis

Journal information: X. Wang et al., “A nanofibrous encapsulation device for safe delivery of insulin-producing cells to treat type 1 diabetes,” Science Translational Medicine (2021)

Categories : Metabolic Disorders Pain ManagementTags :

Spinal Stimulation Shines in Relief of Diabetic Neuropathic Pain

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An implantable spinal cord stimulation device was effective at relieving diabetic neuropathy pain, according to a researcher presenting at an American Association of Clinical Endocrinology virtual meeting.

Presenting the trial results, Erika A Petersen, MD, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said:  “This is the largest randomised controlled trial evaluating spinal cord stimulation for refractory painful diabetic neuropathy.”

In total, more than 85% of patients treated with 10 kHz stimulation were considered responders to treatment — experiencing 50% or greater reduction in pain. On top of that, 60% achieved remission, defined as a pain visual analog scale (VAS) of less than 3.0 cm for 6 consecutive months.

Meanwhile, those receiving only normal medical management saw no significant pain score reduction (7.0 at baseline vs 6.9 at 6 months). More than half of those conventionally treated experienced worsening of their pain, and only about 5% were responders to this type of treatment. Overall, only 1% of patients achieved pain remission with conventional medical management.

Beyond pain improvement, those receiving high frequency spinal cord stimulation plus medical management also saw a 62% improvement in neurological examination versus 3.3% of conventional treatment-only patients (P<0.001). The neurological examination included such as lower limb motor strength, light touch sensation and a 10-point foot assessment with a pinprick and 10-g monofilament.

Patients with the stimulation device also reported a reduction in dysesthaesias or uncomfortable sensations such as itching. They also reported a 62% improvement in sleep disturbances.

Overall, 92% patients in the stimulation group said they were satisfied with their treatment, compared with 6% of those on the conventional treatment group said the same.

The trial included 216 adults with painful analgesic-resistant diabetic neuropathy of the lower limbs. Half of participants received only conventional medical management, which included pharmacotherapies.

The other half of participants received 10-kHz SCS therapy. These participants received temporary stimulation for 5 to 7 days with percutaneous leads placed epidurally along T8 to T11. If 50% pain relief was achieved, they could have a permanent implantation of the pulse generator, usually in the low back.

In terms of safety, three infections occurred in the stimulation group, two of which required device removal.

There was no change in BMI or HbA1c in either group during the trial.

After the 6-month trial, 82% of patients on conventional treatment were eligible to crossover — meaning they had less than 50% pain relief, were dissatisfied with treatment, and the investigator agreed it was medically appropriate — and chose to receive the stimulation device.

In this extension phase, those with the stimulation device continued to experience pain relief, achieving an average VAS of 1.7 at 12 months out.

“The responder rate remained stable as well, with 86% at 12 months suggesting the attrition seen with other stimulation approaches is not a concern with 10 kHz stimulation,” said Petersen. “We will continue our follow-up to 24 months, with further evaluation of health economic data and other indicators.”

Source: MedPage Today

Journal information: Petersen E, et al “Neuromodulation for treatment of painful diabetic neuropathy – sustained benefits of 10kHz spinal cord stimulation in a randomized controlled trial” AACE 2021.

Categories : Gender Injury & TraumaTags :

Treating Brain Injuries with Sex-specific Interventions

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New research has identified a sex-specific window of opportunity to treat traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), which scientists are exploiting in a project to create a sex-targeted drug delivery for TBI.

The study, a collaboration of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Arizona State University will be used to help design nanoparticle delivery systems targeting both sexes for treatment of TBI.

“Under normal circumstances, most drugs, even when encapsulated within nanoparticles, do not reach the brain at an effective concentration due to the presence of the blood-brain barrier. However, after a TBI this barrier is compromised, allowing us a window of opportunity to deliver those drugs to the brain where they can have a better chance of exerting a therapeutic effect,” said Rachael Sirianni, PhD, associate professor of neurosurgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. Dr Sirianni’s collaborator and co-lead investigator on this grant, Sarah Stabenfeldt, PhD, was the first to demonstrate that the window of opportunity created in the blood-brain barrier differed between men and women, and it was this key finding that led them to apply for funding.

TBI results from blows to the head, and in the most severe form of TBI, the entirety of the brain is affected by a diffuse type of injury and swelling. The body responds with an acute response to the injury, followed by a chronic phase as it tries to heal.

“In this second phase, a variety of abnormal processes create additional injury that go well beyond the original physical damage to the brain,” Dr Sirianni said.

Normally, the blood vessels maintain a very carefully controlled blood-brain barrier to prevent the entry of harmful substances. However, during this second phase of healing following a TBI, those blood vessels are compromised, possibly allowing substances to seep in.

One of the numerous differences between female and male patients is varying levels and cycles of sex hormones such as oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. While these levels already differ in healthy people, additional hormone disruption for both sexes can result from a brain injury.

Dr Sirianni explained that this work is extremely important as presently TBIs have no effective treatment options. Current treatments for TBI vary widely based on injury severity and range from daily cognitive therapy sessions to radical surgery such as bilateral decompressive craniectomies. 

“The goal of this research is to develop different nanoparticle delivery systems that can target the unique physiological state of males versus females following a TBI. Through this research, we hope to develop an optimum distribution system for these drugs to be delivered to the brain and can hopefully find an effective treatment plan for TBIs,” Sirianni said.

Drugs that previously perceived as unsafe or ineffective when given systemically can instead be targeted directly to the injury microenvironment through nanoparticle delivery systems.

“With these nanoparticle systems, we’re looking at how we can revisit a drug that showed promise in preclinical studies or clinical trials but then failed,” Stabenfeldt said.

Source: The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Categories : Cardiovascular Disease Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

New Early Warning System for Sudden Cardiac Death

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Photo from Olivier Collett on Unsplash
Photo from Olivier Collett on Unsplash

Researchers at Tomsk Polytechnic University have developed a nanosensor-based system that can detect early abnormalities in the function of cardiac muscle cells, which otherwise can be recorded only with invasive procedures.

The nanosensor-based hardware and software complex can measure cardiac micropotential energies without filtering and averaging-out cardiac cycles in real time. The device allows registering early abnormalities in the function of cardiac muscle cells, which otherwise can be recorded only during open-heart surgery or by inserting an electrode in a cardiac cavity through a vein. Such changes can lead to sudden cardiac death (SCD). Nowadays, there are no alternatives to the Tomsk device for a number of key characteristics in Russia and the world. ).

The main method of detection of electrical pulses in the heart is electrocardiography (ECG). Nevertheless, ECG modern devices detect already critical changes in the function of the myocardium.

“Therefore, there is much concern about the creation of devices for early detection of these disorders, when it is still possible to restore cell function using medication and without surgical intervention. To implement this, it is required to record cardiac micropotential energies, electrical pulses emitted by separate cells. Here, there is a question of how to implement it noninvasive. Our research team have worked on this task for a long time, as a consequence, we jointly with the participation of our colleagues, doctors, have developed a hardware and software complex.

“The core principles of its operation are similar to ECG, however, we changed sensors: we made nanosensors instead of conventional sensors and managed to measure signals of nanovoltage and microvoltage layers without filtering and averaging-out in broadband. The use of nanosensors led to the necessity to apply original circuit solutions, write individual software.

“Ultimately, we gained a tremendous difference in sensitivity,” Diana Avdeeva, Head of the TPU Laboratory for Medical Engineering, a research supervisor of the project, said.

The system consists of a set of sensors, a tiny key device for recording incoming signals from sensors and data processing software. The sensors are fixed on a patient’s chest using a conducting gel, and the monitoring procedure takes about 20 minutes.

Conventional ECG machines operate on frequencies from 0,05 Hz to 150 Hz, while the device of the Tomsk scientists operates on much higher frequencies of up to 10 000 Hz.

“Silver chloride electrodes are usually used for recording ECG of high quality. Our sensors are also silver chloride electrodes, however, we used silver nanoparticles. There are up to 16 thin plates from porous ceramics in every our sensor, silver nanoparticles are placed in these pores. There are millions of particles in one sensor, where every particle is a silver chloride electrode capable to enhance an electric field of the heart. Silver and gold nanoparticles are capable to enhance an electromagnetic field: visible light by 10,000 folds and infrared radiation by 20 folds. We also refused to use filters for rejection network interference and noises, which are usually used in conventional ECG and significantly distort micropotentials,” Diana Avdeeva said.

The published study includes the monitoring data of one volunteer’s heart function, who took part in the research for four years and was monitored every 7-10 days.

“At the beginning of our research, we recorded clear violations of activity of cardiac muscle cells. His attending physician recommended surgery, he gained an inserted stent at the Cardiology Research Institute. Then, he continued to take part in the research and the device recorded the further gradual restoration of cardiac function,” the scientist noted.

“A task to create a sensitive, tiny and affordable complex was set up, in order in a long run, outpatient clinics and patients at home could use it. Moreover, the developed methods and devices can be used not only in cardiology.

“The fields of any electrophysiological research, such as electroencephalography, electromyography and so on are promising. Of course, before applying it to cardiology, we have to pass some essential stages. These are the collection of the required array of statistics, certification of the complex for medical use. All these stages require sponsorship, we are engaged in searching for partners and supporting programs,” said research team member Mikhail Yuzhakov, Engineer at the TPU Laboratory for Medical Engineering.

Source: Tomsk Polytechnic University

Categories : Medical Research & Technology NeurologyTags :

Brain-computer Interface Lets Paralysed People Write Letters

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Researchers have developed a new brain-computer interface (BCI) that can let paralysed people write by mentally writing letters by hand.

Working with a participant with paralysis who has sensors implanted in his brain, the team used an algorithm to identify letters in real time as he attempted to write them, putting the results on a screen.

This technology could be further developed to allow people with paralysis type rapidly without using their hands, said study coauthor Krishna Shenoy, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Stanford University who jointly supervised the work with Jaimie Henderson, a Stanford neurosurgeon.

By attempting handwriting, the study participant was able to ‘type’ 90 characters per minute — more than double the previous record for typing with such a brain-computer interface.

Thought-powered communication

Even if injury or disease the ability to move, the brain’s neural activity for being able to do so remains. By making use of this activity, researchers can help people with paralysis or amputations regain lost abilities.

In recent years, Shenoy’s team has decoded the neural activity associated with speech in the hopes of reproducing it. Patients with implanted sensors mentally pointed at and clicked on letters on a screen to type at about 40 characters per minute, the previous speed record for typing with a BCI.
Wanting to try something new and different, Frank Willett, a neuroscientist in Shenoy’s group, wondered if it might be possible to harness the brain signals evoked by writing by hand “We want to find new ways of letting people communicate faster,” he said. 

The team worked with a participant enrolled in a clinical trial involving BCIs. Henderson implanted two tiny sensors into the part of the brain that controls the hand and arm, making it possible for the person to, for example, move a robotic arm or a cursor on a screen by attempting to move their own paralysed arm.
The participant, who was 65 years old at the time of the research, had a spinal cord injury that left him paralysed from the neck down. A machine learning algorithm recognised the patterns his brain produced when he attempted to write each letter.

With this system, the man could copy sentences and answer questions at a rate similar to that of someone his age typing on a smartphone. The reason why this so-called “Brain-to-Text” BCI is so fast is because each letter elicits a highly distinctive activity pattern, making it relatively easy for the algorithm to distinguish one from another, Willett explained.

A new system

Shenoy’s team envisions using attempted handwriting for text entry as part of a more comprehensive system that also includes point-and-click navigation, much like that used on current smartphones, and even attempted speech decoding. “Having those two or three modes and switching between them is something we naturally do,” he said.
The team intends to next work with a participant who cannot speak, such as a person with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative neurological disorder leading to loss of movement and speech.

The new system could potentially help those suffering from paralysis caused by a number of conditions, Henderson added. Those include brain stem stroke, which afflicted Jean-Dominique Bauby, the author of the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. “He was able to write this moving and beautiful book by selecting characters painstakingly, one at a time, using eye movement,” Henderson said. “Imagine what he could have done with Frank’s handwriting interface!”

Source: Howard Hughes Medical Institute