Featured Articles

Performance Evaluation of Magnetic Resonance Coupling Method for Intra-Body Network (IBNet)

Author(s)3: Sayemul Islam, Albert Kim
Performance Evaluation of Magnetic Resonance Coupling Method for Intra-Body Network (IBNet) IEEE EMBS
The study presents magnetic resonance (MR) coupling as a promising method for the intra-body network (IBNet) by demonstrating effective signal transmission in the human body. A comparative performance evaluation revealed that the MR coupling exhibited a path loss (PL) of under 33 dB (at 13.56 MHz), which is lower than other methods (galvanic, capacitive, or RF). The angular orientation between the transmitter and receiver showed a minor variation (∆PL ≤ 0.62 dB) but moderate dependency on distance (0.05 dB/cm). Different postures did not affect the communication (∆PL ≤ 0.21 dB). Multi-nodal transmission using MR coupling also showed successful communication. read more

A Novel Capsule-Delivered Enteric Drug-Injection Device for Delivery of Systemic Biologics: A Pilot Study in a Porcine Model

Author(s)3: Sunandita Sarker, Ben Wankum, Jeff Shimizu, Ryan Jones, Benjamin Terry
A Novel Capsule-Delivered Enteric Drug-Injection Device for Delivery of Systemic Biologics: A Pilot Study in a Porcine Model IEEE EMBS
Here, we report a swallowable capsule for intestinal drug delivery (SCIDD) with the potential of directly injecting biological therapeutics into the small intestine wall. The design, optimization, and validation of the SCIDD’s primary subsystems were performed both ex-vivo and in-vivo. The assembled capsule was further tested in vivo to validate the actuation sequence which showed a 70% success rate in an animal model. A drug delivery study indicated systemic uptake of adalimumab via SCIDD compared with luminal delivery in the small intestine. The pilot study presented here establishes that the novel platform could be used to orally deliver systemic biologics. read more

Simultaneous localized brain mild hyperthermia and blood-brain barrier opening via feedback-controlled transcranial MR-guided focused ultrasound and microbubbles

Simultaneous localized brain mild hyperthermia and blood-brain barrier opening via feedback-controlled transcranial MR-guided focused ultrasound and microbubbles IEEE EMBS
We present a synergistic focused ultrasound-based brain drug delivery method for both spatiotemporally precise transcranial mild hyperthermia and simultaneous localized blood-brain barrier (BBB) opening. We demonstrated that with the presence of microbubbles, transcranial MR-guided focused ultrasound mild hyperthermia can be achieved at significantly reduced powers and prolonged BBB opening can be simultaneously achieved with hyperthermia sonications in a rodent model. No structural abnormality, edema, hemorrhage, or acute microglial activation was observed in the target region via MR imaging and histology. This study provides a new strategy for enhanced drug delivery in brain tissues with a high clinical translation potential. read more

Jet-Induced Tissue Disruption for Blood Release

Jet-Induced Tissue Disruption for Blood Release IEEE EMBS
Jet injectors use a high-speed fluid jet to pierce the skin, and can be used not only to deliver drugs, but also to release capillary blood, much like a lancet. This work provides new histological information about tissue disruption induced by a circular jet, a lancet-inspired slot-shaped jet, and a lancet prick. The slot-shaped jet caused shallower penetration with smaller wound volume but disrupted more vascular endothelium than the circular jet. The findings suggest that jet injection can be designed to release capillary blood in volumes similar to that of a lancet prick, and thus be useful in blood testing. read more

Inverse Reinforcement Learning Intra-operative Path Planning for Steerable Needle

Author(s)3: Elena De Momi
Inverse Reinforcement Learning Intra-operative Path Planning for Steerable Needle IEEE EMBS
This work presents a safe and effective keyhole neurosurgery intra-operative planning framework for flexible neurosurgical robots. The framework is intended to support neurosurgeons during the intraoperative procedure to react to a dynamic environment. The proposed system integrates inverse reinforcement learning path planning algorithm, based on expert demonstrations, with a realistic, time-bounded simulator based on Position-based Dynamics simulation that mocks brain deformations due to catheter insertion and a simulated robotic system. Simulation results performed on a human brain dataset show that that the presented intra-operative steerable needle path planner is able to avoid anatomical obstacles while optimising surgical criteria. read more

Impedance Properties of Multi-Optrode Biopotential Sensing Arrays

Author(s)3: Nigel Hamilton Lovell
Impedance Properties of Multi-Optrode Biopotential Sensing Arrays IEEE EMBS
This work demonstrates the advantage of using an optically inspired, liquid-crystal based biopotential recording technology over a conventional electrode and amplifier system. This optical electrode (optrode) system is favorable for its ability to adjust the input impedance levels in dense-array configurations. We conducted a benchtop experiment and circuit simulations to investigate the relationship between liquid-crystal transducer and interface impedances and the recording-site size in order to better understand the impedance properties of optrodes. This work is the starting point to optimize the layout and configuration of multi-optrode arrays to target various biomedical applications. read more

Muscle-Specific High-Density Electromyography Arrays for Hand Gesture Classification

Author(s)3: Leo K. Cheng
Muscle-Specific High-Density Electromyography Arrays for Hand Gesture Classification IEEE EMBS
Muscle-specific, high-density, flexible electromyography (HD-EMG) electrode arrays were designed and applied to capture the myoelectric activity of key intrinsic hand muscles to classify motions and to allow individual analysis of each muscle. Myoelectric activity was displayed as spatio-temporal maps to visualize muscle activation. Time-domain and temporal-spatial HD-EMG features were extracted to train machine machine-learning classifiers to predict user motion, using data collected from intrinsic hand muscles. The muscle-specific electrode arrays can be combined with EMG decomposition techniques to assess motor unit activity and in applications involving the analysis of dexterous hand motions. read more

Sleep Monitoring Using Ear-Centered Setups: Investigating the Influence From Electrode Configurations

Author(s)3: Mike Lind Rank, Preben Kidmose
Sleep Monitoring Using Ear-Centered Setups: Investigating the Influence From Electrode Configurations IEEE EMBS
We combine ear-EEG sleep recordings with a state-of-the-art sleep scoring model, ‘seqsleepnet’, to investigate the upper limits of mobile sleep scoring. We manage to further improve on the state of the art in this field, and perform a detailed analysis of the influence of electrode positioning. From this, we find a general rule of thumb that as long a data set contain EOG information and electrode distance on the order of the width of the head, then good automatic sleep scoring is possible. We also find indications that the obtained automatic scoring may be more reliable than the manual scoring. read more

Design a Novel BCI for Neurorehabilitation Using Concurrent LFP and EEG Features: A Case Study

Author(s)3: Yi Sun, Yu Qi, Yueming Wang, Cuntai Guan, Yu Sun
Design a Novel BCI for Neurorehabilitation Using Concurrent LFP and EEG Features: A Case Study 570 428 IEEE EMBS
This work introduced for the first time a novel BCI that incorporate both intracortical LFP and scalp EEG (named, LFP-EEG-BCI) for motor intention decoding during neurorehabilitation. Concurrent intracortical and scalp signals were collected from a paraplegic patient undergoing motor imagery (MI) neurorehabilitation training. A common spatial filter approach was adopted for feature extraction and a decision fusion strategy was further introduced to obtain the decoding results. Transfer learning approach was also utilized to reduce the calibration. The proposed novel LFP-EEG-BCI may lead to new directions for developing practical neurorehabilitation systems in clinical applications. read more

Acoustic beam mapping for guiding HIFU therapy in vivo using sub-therapeutic sound pulse and passive beamforming

Acoustic beam mapping for guiding HIFU therapy in vivo using sub-therapeutic sound pulse and passive beamforming 180 180 IEEE EMBS
This work aims at deriving the therapeutic energy distribution within the tissue at the pre-treatment stage to guide the HIFU procedure. A beamforming-based energy mapping technique was established to estimate in-situ beam path of the therapeutic energy in a non-invasive way, which is extremely useful in visualizing the sound beam, especially its focal region, for the HIFU surgery. Effectiveness of this technique has been validated with simulations, in-vitro experiments, ex-vivo experiments and in-vivo tests on a rabbit. The technique is safe, easy to be applied in clinical practices, and can potentially be adapted to other ultrasound-related beam manipulating applications. read more
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