Wireless implants
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), together with scientists from Brigham and Women's Hospital, have developed a new way to charge and control devices implanted in the human body. Such devices can be used to deliver medicines, monitor the state of the body or treat diseases by stimulation with electrical or light pulses.
The role of wires is played by radio frequency radiation, which can safely pass through human tissues. Now implantable devices can become even smaller and more compact, because they do not require batteries. In this study, a prototype the size of a grain of rice was tested, but, as the authors write, this is far from the limit.
Medical devices that are designed to work inside the body provide new ways to diagnose, monitor and treat many diseases, as well as to deliver medicines.
One of the methods of treating epilepsy and Parkinson's disease is deep brain stimulation. It is carried out by electrodes, which are controlled by a device implanted under the skin. With the new development, it is no longer necessary, the stimulation process can be controlled from a distance.
The development will also affect pacemakers, which will become much smaller, since there will be no need to put batteries in them.
Radio waves, once in the body, tend to dissipate, and eventually they become too weak to provide sufficient power. But the researchers developed a system they called "In Vivo Networking" (IVN). It works thanks to an array of antennas emitting radio waves with slightly different frequencies. As they pass through the media, the radio waves overlap and overlap each other. At certain points, when the waves connect at the highest frequency, they generate enough energy to power the implanted sensor.
To work with IVN, a person does not need to know the exact location of the implants in the body, since the power is transmitted over a large area. In addition, you can charge multiple devices at the same time. Together with the power pulse, the implants also receive a signal requiring information to be transmitted to the antenna. The researchers say that this signal can also be used to stimulate the release of a drug, an electrical pulse or a light beam.
The development was tested on pigs. Experiments have shown that the radio frequency signal IVN is able to reach a sensor located in the body at a depth of 10 centimeters, from a distance of up to one meter. If the implant is close to the surface, it receives a signal from a distance of up to 38 meters.
Currently, researchers are working to ensure more efficient transmission of energy over even greater distances. The researchers say that this technology can also improve the application of radio frequency applications not only in medicine, but also in other areas where data needs to be tracked and transmitted over long distances.
The results will be reported at the conference of the Association of Computing Machinery SIGCOMM (Special Interest Group on Data Communication), which will be held on August 20-25, 2018 in Budapest.
Article Y. Ma et al. Enabling Deep-Tissue Networking for Miniature Medical Devices.
Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on MIT News: Wireless system can power devices inside the body.