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Brain machine interfaces (BMIs) have the potential to help individuals with functional impairments, such as loss of motor control, due to neurological disease or spinal cord injury. BMIs map brain signals acquired in relevant brain regions to patient intent to enable functional restoration. In previous studies, BMIs have enabled patients to control robotic arm movements, and type by translating brain signals directly into text.  Intracortical BMIs record and sample brain signals from relevant regions of the brain at rates high enough to process both local field potentials (LFP) and action potentials (spikes).The development of high performance brain machine interfaces (BMIs) requires scaling recording channel count to enable simultaneous recording from large populations of neurons. Unfortunately, proposed implantable neural interfaces have power requirements that scale linearly with channel count. 

As an important tool for electrophysiological recordings, neural electrodes implanted on the brain surface have been instrumental in basic neuroscience research to study large-scale neural dynamics in various cognitive processes, such as sensorimotor processing as well as learning and memory. In clinical settings, neural recordings have been adopted as a standard tool to monitor the brain activity in epilepsy patients before surgery for detection and localization of epileptogenic zones initiating seizures and functional cortical mapping. Neural activity recorded from the brain surface exhibits rich information content about the collective neural activities reflecting the cognitive states and brain functions. For the interpretation of surface potentials in terms of their neural correlates, most research has focused on local neural activities.   From basic neuroscience research to clinical treatments and neural engineering, electrocorticography (ECoG) has been widely used to record surface potentials to evaluate brain function and develop neuroprosthetic devices. However, the requirement of invasive surgeries for implanting ECoG arrays significantly limits the coverage of different cortical regions, preventing simultaneous recordings from spatially distributed cortical networks. However, this rich information content of surface potentials encoded for the large-scale cortical activity remains unexploited and little is known on how local surface potentials are correlated with the spontaneous neural activities of distributed large-scale cortical networks. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

A promising area of clinical research has been growing in wearable diagnostics that has proven to be a powerful tool in healthy physiological as well as disease diagnostics. As the field grows and develops, a number of specializations are already emerging including diagnostics focused on: cardiac dysfunction, epilepsy, and most recently infectious disease detection.

Adhesion involves highly complex and hierarchical structures in nature, and by understanding the biological intricacies of such adhesive structures, one can improve engineered adhesives. The role of reversible adhesion in both the natural world and in engineering is to temporarily bind to a surface, providing the opportunity to detach and re-attach as needed. In nature, animals use attachment to enhance their fitness.  In robotics, reversible adhesion enables improved manipulation and locomotion by managing contact at the interface between the robot and its environment.

Cardiac ablations are common medical treatments for people with atrial fibrillation (Afib). During the ablation procedure, a cardiac electrophysiologist will thermally ablate, or burn off, defective heart tissue with radiofrequency or cryoablation technology. The esophagus is often in close proximity to the left atrium. Since the left atrial tissue is approximately 2mm thin, the heat can transfer through it to the esophagus in contact and cause thermal damage / lesions on the esophagus.  In worst-case rare scenarios, an atrio-esophageal fistula, or hole between the esophagus and the heart, can occur which has a ~75% mortality rate.  It would be ideal to move the esophagus away from the heart before or during the ablation procedure preventing thermal damage.

Various examples of delivering continuous auditory stimulation of various kinds (sometimes referred to by the term “entrainment”) have been proposed to modulate brainwaves for therapeutic effect. Current methods of delivering continuous auditory stimulation typically present noises (in the form of clicks, tones, pulses) embedded in music. By modulating the user’s existing audial environment to embed continuous auditory sound stimulation, this technology creates a more tolerable and user-friendly experience that enables prolonged therapeutic stimulation for such neurodegenerative disorders as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).

There is a clinical need for improved visual inspection for ENT diagnosis and surgeries. Endoscopy is required to access locations of ENT conditions. However, the assessment and identification of ENT abnormalities and pathologies remain challenging due to the difficult-to- reach ENT locations and the complex nature of the related pathologies. An imaging technique that could provide additional information, high contrast, and quantitative data about the patient condition will be useful, especially to assist ENT clinicians in diagnosis and surgeries and to avoid the need to resort to more expensive imaging techniques (e.g., CT scans, ultrasound imaging,MRI).

Endoscopes are used in many fields of medicine to investigate, diagnose, and treat patients. One common procedure that utilizes an endoscope (known as a bronchoscope), is the procedure of intubation that is conducted over 16 million times in the United States annually. To intubate a patient successfully, a physician needs to insert an endotracheal tube (ETT) into the patient’s mouth and secure it in the airway. A delay in securing the ETT into position of greater than 4 minutes can result in permanent brain injury or death of the patient. Malfunction of an indwelling ETT itself or changes in the airway anatomy may lead to emergent need for ETT exchange. The bronchoscope is the gold standard device for confirming the proper placement of an ETT in the trachea and the ultimate method for regaining control. A detachable endoscope design offers additional key advantages potentially allowing the insertion tube portion to be an economical, disposable, single patient use device, eliminating the concern over superbug cross contamination and reducing cost of processing and maintenance.

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Red light exposure can have phototherapeutic effects on skin cells and other biological cells and tissues affected by UV damage. However, existing methods and devices using red light in DNA phototherapy have not identified the proper duration, intensity, or delivery mechanisms for optimal DNA repair. If the radiant intensity of the red light is too low, then exposure is inadequate and the repair biomarkers are not activated. Conversely, prolonged exposure to excessive electromagnetic radiation only furthers DNA damage. Moreover, in the context of skin treatment, excessive radiant intensity can burn tissue or have carcinogenic side effects. Thus, there is a need for a device and methods of use that provide safe, effective, and targeted red light DNA phototherapy.

A major goal in disease screening, diagnosis, and control has been to develop bioassay platforms capable of simultaneous measurements of different analytes in a single assay. Significant advances toward multiplexed biomarker detection chips based on either immunoassays or enzymatic bioassays have thus been reported. However, the combination of enzymatic and immunoassay sensing into a single disposable system has hitherto not been addressed.

Teleoperation brings the advantage of remote control and manipulation to distant locations or harsh or constrained environments. The system allows operators to send commands from a remote console, traditionally called a master device, to a robot, traditionally called a slave device, and offers synchronization of movements. This allows the remote user to operate as if on-site, making teleoperational systems an ideal and often only solution to a wide range of applications such as underwater exploration, space robotics, mobile robots, and telesurgery. The main technical challenge in realizing remote telesurgery (and similarly, all remote teleoperation) is the latency from the communication distance between the master and slave. This delay causes overshoot and oscillations in the commanded positions, and are observable and statistically significant in as little as 50msec of round trip communication delay. Predictive displays are virtual reality renderings, generally designed for space operations, that show a prediction of the events to follow in a short amount of time. It can be used to overcome the negative effects of delay by giving the operator immediate feedback from a predicted environment. Furthermore, it does not suffer stability issues that arise with delayed haptic feedback. Early predictive displays included manipulation of the Engineering Test Satellite 7 from ground control where the round trip delay can be up to 7sec and Augmented Reality (AR) rendering where the prediction is overlaid on raw image data. These strategies can be applied to telesurgery, but require overcoming the unique challenges in calculating and tracking the 3D environment for a full environment prediction, which includes non-rigid material such as tissue. Furthermore, prior work in the surgical robotics community highlights the need for active tracking rather than only relying on kinematic calibrations to localize the slave due to the millimeter scale of a surgical operation and the often utilized cable driven actuation.

Point-of-care (POC) testing is essential to halt the spread of deadly infectious diseases (e.g., Ebola, Zika, etc.) and is needed for rapid and accurate screening both in and outside of clinical settings. Label-free bioassays are desirable for POC testing as they have fewer reagents and assay steps resulting in lower cost and ease of use.   Biosensors based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), an ultra-sensitive, label-free sensing technique, are a promising technology for precise and rapid disease diagnosis at the point-of-care. However, EIS usually requires mixers and lock-in detection to measure both the magnitude and phase of the complex impedance.

Diabetes is a major disease affecting all populations and age groups, and society as a whole. All therapies for diabetes are based on achieving close glucose control. Close glucose control achieved by sufficient and timely administration of therapy has been shown to reduce the destructive “long-term complications” of diabetes, such as retinal damage, kidney failure, amputations, and cardiovascular damage, as well as debilitating and life-threatening short-term hypoglycemia. However, attainment of close control requires a means of glucose monitoring and means for correction of glucose imbalances such as administration of insulin, pharmaceuticals, diet adjustment, and exercise, based on the monitored glucose concentration.

Training for direct laryngoscopy relies heavily on practice with patients. The necessity for human practice might be supplanted to some extent by an intubation manikin with accurate airway anatomy, a realistic “feel” during laryngoscopy, the capacity to model many patient configurations, and a means to provide feedback to trainees and instructors. The realism and mobility of the anatomical features of current models limits the effectiveness of training intubation skills. Current models provide only one set of anatomic features, but patients present innumerable combinations of size, shape, proportion, and tissue stiffness. Thus, a novice who trains on a particular model merely learns how to intubate that particular model, but has minimal ability to transfer the learned skills to the multiplicity of anatomies in patients. Furthermore, most models approximate a normal anatomic configuration that poses no problem for intubation, so novices do not gain experience with difficult situations

Metastasis is a complex process in which cancer cells migrate from the primary tumor, invade into the vasculature, and travel to distant parts of the body to establish secondary tumors. Cells with a greater metastatic potential have a proclivity for leading migration away from the primary tumor. Progress in identifying cells primed to metastasize and in assessing metastatic risk has been slow. This may be due in part to the lack of consistent molecular prognostic markers between cancer types and significant heterogeneity in metastatic potential within the tumor. However, all metastatic cells – independent of tumor type or heterogeneity within the tumor – must detach from the tumor, migrate through the surrounding tissue, and invade the blood stream. This process involves a significant change in adhesion, which can be quantified in a heterogeneous population of cancer cells.

Colon cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in men and women in the United States. It is also the third leading cause of cancer-related death in women and the second leading cause in men.  Colonoscopy has been an important tool for screening and prevention of colon cancer. During this procedure, precancerous polyps called adenomas can be removed. Annually, over 15 million colonoscopies are performed each year. A colonoscopy is recommended for adults over the age of 50 in the US to screen for colon cancer. During a colonoscopy, a camera at the end of a flexible tube is inserted into the anus and advanced approximately four feet with the aid of water or air insufflation. Upon withdrawal, the colon is inflated with air to visualize the lining and detect polyps. A good quality exam is dependent on the ability of the anal sphincter muscles to hold water or air in the colon and prevent it from collapsing and obscuring views. There is currently no device available to create a seal in the anus in patients with weak anal sphincter muscles. Weak anal sphincters can occur in patients with history of anorectal surgery, childbirth or increasing age and makes up a growing number of patients undergoing colonoscopy.

  Heparin anticoagulation therapy is a cornerstone of surgical and cardiovascular medicine because of its short half-life, reversible nature, and low cost, but it also suffers from a narrow therapeutic window and is the second most common medication error. It is used prophylactically in pediatric patients undergoing angiography, bypass, cannulation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, as well as therapeutically in thromboses, and cancer. Heparin is used in 15% of pediatric inpatients, and approximately one in seven patients has an adverse event, for an annual morbidity of 140,000; mortality rates of the diseases treated with heparin are 2-20% and include cerebral sinovenous thrombosis and vascular thromboembolism. These inherent challenges are compounded by iatrogenic errors such as incorrect heparin ordering, inaccurate infusion pump settings, and incomplete record keeping, resulting in ~10,000 heparin medication errors per year. Heparin is involved in more medication errors than morphine and vancomycin with multiple deaths annually particularly in neonates. Thousands more suffer from hemorrhages or emboli because of inaccurate dosing and dosing/monitoring programs that are designed for adult populations. Because of these issues, heparin anticoagulation therapy must be monitored very carefully. The current standard of care is the activated partial thromboplastin time; however, this in vitro diagnostic tool requires large blood volumes and suffers from long turnaround times, a variable pediatric reference range, and poor correlation to heparin dose/patient performance. Clearly, there is an unmet need for a real-time and non-invasive tool to monitor heparin.1The field of pediatric coagulation are desperate for new and improved analytical instrumentation to increase the efficacy of heparin monitoring.  

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In conventional vessel encoded pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (PASL), the temporal signal to noise (tSNR) is improved by repeatedly applying pulsed labeling pulses in between Look-Locker readouts.  This works optimally when the temporal width of the tagged boluses matches the inter-pulse spacing. However, because the feeding arteries generally have different velocities and geometries, the conventional labeling slab fails to achieve desirable tSNR.  

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Implanted medical devices (IMDs) employing bio-signal recording and transcutaneous transmission require a high data rate for the uplink while also being powered wirelessly e.g., intracranial multi-channel ECoG recording.  Load Shift Keying (LSK), a widely used modulation scheme for uplink data telemetry, trades off power transfer and data-rate based on the inductive coil’s quality factor Q. High power transfer efficiency requires high Q, normally restricting the data rate. Data rates of 100-500 kbps with simultaneous power transfer have been achieved by LSK, and a few Mbps using multiple dedicated inductive links for data transfer and power transfer have also been realized.  Further, using transient response from phase shifts by shorting the secondary LC tank for a half cycle achieves near 1-Mbps data rate with power transfer over single inductive link.  However, this scheme loses energy whenever shorting the LC tank because of the subsequent reversal of LC resonance and the recovery time after transmitting one bit limits the data rate. Approaches using higher RF bands require additional complexity in circuits and antenna structures.