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Robotic interface masters a soft touch

EPFL researchers have developed a haptic (relating to the sense of touch) technology that is capable of reproducing the softness of materials ranging from a marshmallow to a beating heart —overcoming a deceptively complex challenge that has previously eluded roboticists.

The perception of softness plays a crucial role in many actions and interactions—from judging the ripeness of an avocado to conducting a medical exam, or holding the hand of a loved one. But understanding and reproducing softness perception is challenging, because it involves so many sensory and cognitive processes.

Softness Rendering Interface

Previous attempts have not distinguished between two primary elements of softness perception: cutaneous cues (sensory feedback from the skin of the fingertip), and kinesthetic cues (feedback about the amount of force on the finger joint).

Now researchers at the Reconfigurable Robotics Lab (RLL) in EPRL’s School of Engineering have done just that.

A softness interface

With SORI (Softness Rendering Interface), they were able to decouple cutaneous and kinesthetic cues for a range of real materials.

The research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

We feel softness differently, dependng on skin contact

Neuroscientific and psychological studies show that cutaneous cues are largely based on how much skin is in contact with a surface. A surface that envelopes a greater area of your fingertip will be perceived as softer.

The reseachers developed parameters for the geometries of a fingertip and its contact surface to estimate the softness cues for that fingertip and extracted the softness parameters from a range of different materials. Then they mapped both sets of parameters onto the SORI device.

Creating softness for a range of materials

With this novel decoupling of kinesthetic and cutaneous functionality, SORI succeeded in recreating the softness of a range of materials—including beef, salmon, and marshmallow over the course of several experiments with two human volunteers.

It also mimicked materials with both soft and firm attributes (such as a biscuit on top of a marshmallow, and the sensation of a beating heart).

A wide range of robotic applications

Medicine is a primary area of potential application for this technology. For example, to train medical students to detect cancerous tumors, or to provide crucial sensory feedback to surgeons using robots to perform operations.

Other applications include robot-assisted exploration of space or the deep ocean, where the device could enable scientists to feel the softness of a discovered object from a remote location.

SORI is also a potential answer to one of the biggest challenges in robot-assisted agriculture: harvesting tender fruits and vegetables without crushing them.

Citation: Mete, M., Jeong, H., Wang, W. D., & Paik, J. (2024). SORI: A softness-rendering interface to unravel the nature of softness perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(13), e2314901121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2314901121

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The Illuminated Body

Researchers have invented a radical new wireless light source that might one day make it possible to “illuminate” the human body from the inside.

This minimally invasive design could allow for better understanding and treating diseases that currently require implanting bulky devices.

The new approach, described in the open-access journal Science Advances, was developed by a research team from the University of St Andrews and the University of Cologne in Europe.

Optical brain stimulation using wireless OLEDs

The design is based on integrating organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs, commonly used on smartphones and televisions) on compact “acoustic antennas.”

Such optical stimulation techniques have emerged as a promising alternative to electrical stimulation because they can be more cell-selective, down to stimulating individual cells. This compares to conventional brain stimulators, which often incorporate a large number of electrodes.

Tech details

OLEDs consist of thin layers of organic materials that can be applied to almost any surface. The researchers exploit this property to deposit OLEDs directly onto the acoustic antenna, merging the unique properties of both platforms into a single extremely compact device.

In this way, acoustic antennas serve as substrate and power source for the custom-developed OLED. The antennas convert energy from a magnetic field into a mechanical oscillation and subsequently into an electric current by the “composite magnetoelectric effect.”

Wireless light source combines minimal device size, low operation frequency and optical stimulation

The new devices operate at sub-megahertz frequencies, a frequency range used for example for submarine communication, as electromagnetic fields at this frequency are only weakly absorbed by water. However, the intended application in biomedicine requires a small device in order to avoid a negative impact on the tissue.

“Many emerging applications require multiple sites to be stimulated independently, which is why modern brain stimulators often incorporate a large number of electrodes, said Humboldt Professor Dr Malte Gather, head of the Humboldt Centre for Nano- and Biophotonics at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

No bulky electronics

“In the case of our wireless light sources, the devices can be independently controlled and operated without the need of additional and potentially bulky electronics.”

This is possible because the operation frequencies of different acoustic antennas can be tuned to different values. In the future, this could allow for the individual control of multiple stimulators in different parts of the body, to treat tremor in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease, for example.

Citation: Butscher, J. F., Hillebrandt, S., Mischok, A., Popczyk, A., H. Booth, J. H., & Gather, M. C. (2024). Wireless magnetoelectrically powered organic light-emitting diodes. Science Advances.

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New microscopy technique reveals activity of one million neurons across the mouse brain

One of the mysteries in neuroscience is how tools that capture relatively few components of brain activity have allowed scientists to predict behavior in mice, while much of the complexity of a mouse brain is “irrelevant background noise,” says Rockefeller University physicist Alipasha Vaziri.

In 2021, Vaziri’s lab developed light-beads microscopy (LBM), which enabled a 100-fold increase in the number of neurons that could be simultaneously recorded.

Recording one million neurons

The researchers have now recorded the activity of more than one million neurons across the entire cortex of the mouse brain for the first time. Animals were observed by multiple cameras from different angles.

The researchers used LBM in combination with advanced data analysis, computational modeling, and machine learning techniques to study the neural activity of mice as they spontaneously moved and reacted to their environment.

A brain observatory

LBM will be used in the Rockefeller Brain Observatory, a new initiative spearheaded by Vaziri to make pioneering, commercially unavailable instruments accessible to neuroscientists “that can do things that are otherwise impossible,” Vaziri says. 

Vaziri and his team are also helping researchers at several universities, including at Stanford University and UCL-London, to replicate LBM technology in their own neuroscience labs. The data they’ve amassed from the current study is also available for analysis by other researchers.

Citation: Jason Manle et al. Simultaneous, cortex-wide neuronal population dynamics reveal unbounded scaling of dimensionality with neuron number up to one million neurons. Neuron. March 06, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.02.011

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Good news for sedentary workers

Increasing your daily step count may counteract the health consequences of too much sedentary time each day, a new study of more than 72,000 people by the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre (Australia) has found.

Optimal number of steps per day

Every additional step, up to around 10,000 steps a day, was linked to reduced risk of death (39 percent) and cardiovascular disease (21 percent), regardless of how much remaining time was spent sedentary, the study found.

Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the research is the first to objectively measure, via wrist-worn wearables, whether daily steps could offset the health risks of high sedentary behavior.

After taking account of other potential influences, the researchers calculated that the optimal number of steps per day to counteract high sedentary time was between 9000 to 10000, which lowered mortality risk by 39 percent and incident CVD risk by 21 percent. In both cases, 50 percent of the benefit was achieved at between 4000 and 4500 steps a day.

Research specifics

Researchers used data on 72,174 individuals (average age 61; 58% female) from the UK Biobank study—a major biomedical database—who had worn an accelerometer device on their wrist for seven days to measure their physical activity. The accelerometer data were used to estimate daily step count and time spent sedentary, that is sitting or lying down while awake.

The research team then followed the health trajectory of the participants by linking hospitalization data and death records.

Median steps and time

The median daily step count for participants was 6222 steps/day, and 2200 steps/day (the lowest 5 percent of daily steps among all participants) was taken as the comparator for assessing the impact on death and CVD events of increasing step count.

The median time spent sedentary was 10.6 hours/day, so study participants sedentary for 10.5 hours/day or more were considered to have high sedentary time while those who spent less than 10.5 hours/day sedentary were classified as low sedentary time.

Adjustments were made to eliminate biases, such as excluding participants with poor health, who were underweight or had a health event within two years of followup. Researchers also took into account factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, education, smoking status, alcohol consumption, diet and parental history of CVD and cancer.

Citation: Ahmadi MN, Rezende LFM, Ferrari G, et al. March 5, 2024. Do the associations of daily steps with mortality and incident cardiovascular disease differ by sedentary time levels? A device-based cohort study. British Journal of Sports Medicine Published Online First: doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2023-107221 (open access)

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From AGI to BGI

It’s easy to suggest a new three-letter acronym. It’s much harder to get a new three-letter acronym to stick. Yet that is one likely outcome of a gathering that has just finished in Panama City.

The official title of the gathering was Beneficial AGI Summit & Unconference. But during the planning leading up to the event, the realization spread that the gathering could mark a profound change in the global discussion about AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Hence the need for a more decisive name.

And that’s how the acronym “BGI” was born, standing for “Beneficial General Intelligence“.

The term “Artificial General Intelligence” had been proposed, independently, a number of times from 1997 to 2002, but SingularityNET CEO Ben Goertzel made that term his own due to using it in 2005 as the title of a book of articles, and because of his leading role in organizing an “AGI Conference” every year from 2008 to the present.

That series has featured a wide variety of different kinds of talks over the years. But the primary focus has been the technical possibility of AGI: which architectures of hardware, software, data, and communications are most likely to result in the creation of AGI?

A focus on beneficial outcomes

In contrast, the primary focus of the BGI gathering was the beneficial possibility of AGI: which architectures are most likely to result in AGI that has beneficial outcomes for humanity and other sentient beings—including beings that may come into existence as AGI evolves?

Critically, for the BGI event, the “architectures” include not just technical relationships and connections but also human relationships and connections.

Setting the scene in his opening keynote, Goertzel referenced a working document “BGI: Principles & Practices,” which starts as follows:

This text enumerates and briefly elaborates a core of basic principles and practices that we see as likely helpful and possibly critical for guiding the development and deployment of AGI technology in a positive direction—i.e., toward Beneficial General Intelligence (BGI).

Defend and decentralize

Re-using the term “d/acc” from a recent blogpost by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Goertzel summarized his own preferred approach: “Accelerating progress toward BGI in pursuit of the many powerful benefits anticipated,” while at the same time, “Taking decisive and imaginative measures to defend against negative potentials, and decentralize the dynamics underlying AGI, to avoid pathologies of narrow, closed-minded thinking and autocratic or oligopolistic overly centralized control.“

As Goertzel explained, the “d” in “d/acc” refers to both “defend” and “decentralize.”

As the event continued, it became clear that while these two concepts of “defend” and “decentralize” were both popular, there was wide uncertainty about what they implied. This led to a variety of rich conversations.

Authentic conversations

What I heard from participants, time and again, as the four days of the event unfolded, was an appreciation: not just for the ideas that were shared in the various sessions, but also for the caliber and diversity of the attendees. The fact that there was little overt corporate presence—no salespeople looking to sign up new customers for their products—helped everyone relax into what I heard described as “authentic conversations.”

Attendees—some of whom are pictured below—included politicians and their advisors, researchers from fields such as consciousness and ethical frameworks, technologists with a focus on tools to assist decentralization, designers of robots, members of religious organizations, journalists and authors, film crews and documentary makers, representatives from think tanks and other NGOs, AI safety advocates, health technology innovators, VR system developers, leaders from the world of transhumanism, and much more besides.

(credit: SingularityNet on X)

A few highlights

SingularityNET Chief AI Alchemist (yes, some marvelous job titles were on display) Mihaela Uliheru warned about the dangers of a “Moloch” race toward AI that lacked beneficial characteristics, and emphasized, “It’s all about the incentives, stupid!”

Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford highlighted the importance of legal and other institutions, for the wellbeing of society as a whole, and considered ways in which these institutions might evolve with the emergence of AGI.

Jerome Glenn from the Millennium Project reported on efforts to inspire representatives at the United Nations to pay more attention, not just to the governance challenges of existing “narrow” AI, but to AGI as it may emerge in the near future. Apparently, this is an uphill struggle.

That message dovetailed with a presentation from SingularityNET Chief Operating Officer Janet Adams, who reviewed legislation around the world countering adverse effects from AIs that are biased, misconfigured, or being used for destructive purposes. The takeaway here was that little valuable progress has been made so far.

Common good governance: An AGI constitution

For a different approach to transforming the governance of AGI, Anneloes Smitsman, CEO of EARTHwise Ventures, reviewed progress with an ongoing collaborative initiative to define what she called a “Constitution for guiding Artificial General Intelligence.” That document starts with this “promise”:

We, as future ancestors and children of the new civilizations, commit to common good governance for collectively stewarding the development and evolution of benevolent, safe, and responsible AGI in service to our long-term collective wellbeing.

Kinds of consciousness

Author Jeffery Martin, a founder of the field of Transformative Technology, spoke about the need to understand different modes of consciousness, such as those described over the centuries as enlightened, non-dual, the peace that passeth understanding, unitive, and persistent non-symbolic experience (PNSE). Any research into possible conscious modes for advanced AIs should beware of being trapped into overly narrow definitions of consciousness, he said.

Daniel Faggella of Emerj shared a provocative 3×3 “Intelligence Trajectory Political Matrix” on which different attitudes can be plotted regarding possible futures of artificial intelligence. One dimension was labeled “What you want” and featured “Preservation [of humanity],” “Progression,” and “Ascension.” The other dimension was labeled “How you get it” and featured “Controlled,” “Collaborative,” and “Open.”

Sociological, economic and morality issues

A group of panelists, including James Barrat, James Hughes, and Calum Chace, gave different assessments of the potential sociological and economic impacts of AGI. As with many other conversations at the event, there was agreement that the impacts would likely be extensive, but less agreement on how the approach to these impacts should best be managed.

Finally, in this selection from many other highlights, another group of panelists, including Weaver Weinbaum, Esther Galfalvi, Joscha Bach, and Marta Lenartowicz, debated whether traditional foundations for morality, including utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics, were good starting points for coping with the extraordinarily open-ended transformations that AGI is likely to unleash. Guess what: there were no firm conclusions here either!

Round table groups and the future

In addition to these presentations and panel discussions, a number of impromptu “round table interactive working groups” proved highly popular. Sufficient time was provided for many ideas to be raised, then critiqued, and then recreated in new form. These working groups in turn provided the foundation for “unconference” sessions on the final two days which were organized spontaneously and with little central oversight, but which drew and kept sizable audiences.

At the very end of the event, one request resonated loudly: the conversations about BGI need to continue, quickly and urgently, without everyone having to wait for BGI25 (next year’s version of the BGI event) in around 12 month’s time. Several ideas have been mooted about appropriate tools to host these ongoing conversations.

Personally, I see Mindplex having a strong position to assist with these conversations.

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Is ultra-processed food making you sick?

Noted open-access medical journal The BMJ  just published an article revealing that exposure to ultra-processed foods is associated with an increased risk of 32 damaging health outcomes, including cancer, major heart and lung conditions, mental health disorders, and early death.

“Ultra-processed foods, including packaged baked goods and snacks, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals, and ready-to-eat or heat products, undergo multiple industrial processes and often contain colours, emulsifiers, flavours, and other additives,” the articles says. “These products also tend to be high in added sugar, fat, and/or salt, but are low in vitamins and fibre.”

Urgent measures required

“Ultra-processed foods are not merely modified foods. … They are formulations of often chemically manipulated cheap ingredients such as modified starches, sugars, oils, fats, and protein isolates,” say the researchers. They suggest urgent measures that target and aim to reduce dietary exposure to these products—which can account for up to 58% of total daily energy intake in some high-income countries, and have rapidly increased in many low and middle income nations in recent decades.

To bridge this gap, researchers carried out an umbrella review (a high-level evidence summary) of 45 distinct pooled meta-analyses from 14 review articles associating ultra-processed foods with adverse health outcomes. The review articles were all published in the past three years and involved almost 10 million participants. None were funded by companies involved in the production of ultra-processed foods.

Risk of cardiovascular disease, mental disease diabetes, and death

Convincing evidence showed that higher ultra-processed food intake was associated with around a 50% increased risk of cardiovascular-disease-related death, a 48-53% higher risk of anxiety and common mental disorders, and a 12% greater risk of type 2 diabetes.

Highly suggestive evidence also indicated that higher ultra-processed food intake was associated with a 21% greater risk of death from any cause, a 40-66% increased risk of heart disease related death, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and sleep problems, and a 22% increased risk of depression. Evidence for the associations of ultra-processed food exposure with asthma, gastrointestinal health, some cancers and cardiometabolic risk factors, such as high blood fats and low levels of “good” cholesterol, remains limited.

Public policies and health actions essential

“These findings support urgent mechanistic research and public health actions that seek to target and minimize ultra-processed food consumption for improved population health,” say the researchers.

They point out that reformulation does not eliminate harm, and profitability discourages manufacturers from switching to make nutritious foods, so public policies and action on ultra-processed foods are essential. These include front-of-pack labels, restricting advertising and prohibiting sales in or near schools and hospitals, and fiscal and other measures that make unprocessed or minimally processed foods and freshly prepared meals as accessible and available as, and cheaper than, ultra-processed foods.  

“It is now time for United Nations agencies, with member states, to develop and implement a framework convention on ultra-processed foods similar to the framework on tobacco, and promote examples of best practice,” they advise.

Citation: Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses. 28 February 2024. BMJ. 384. https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj.q439 (open access)

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This cancer drug might also treat an ischemic stroke

A study by the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB (INc-UAB) in Barceloma demonstrates in animal models that a cancer drug can also be used to treat a stroke.

Ischemic stroke, the second leading cause of death worldwide, occurs when blood flow cannot reach the brain due to an obstruction. The brain does not receive oxygen and this causes damage and functional impairment. Hypertension is the most frequent modifiable risk factor for stroke and is associated with the worse recoveries.

Cancer drug vorinostat can also treat brain lesions

Currently, there is only one pharmacological treatment to attenuate the effects of stroke, but it does not work for all patients and is associated with some important adverse effects. Now, researchers at the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB (INc-UAB) in Barceloma were able to demonstrate that the drug vorinostat—used to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma cancer— has great potential in treating brain lesions derived from strokes.

In an article published in the journal Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, the research group demonstrates, in a model of stroke in hypertensive rats, how the use of the drug improves neurological deficits, reduces brain damage and attenuates the inflammatory response, among other effects.

Future clinical trials

The researchers demonstrated that the treatment also protects the surrounding vessels, even a few hours after the stroke occurs.

“These findings would pave the way for the correct design of future clinical trials to test its efficacy and safety in patients who have suffered a stroke,” says study coordinator Francesc Jiménez-Altayó, a researcher from the Department of Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Toxicology at the UAB and the Cardiovascular Diseases Area of the Centre for Biomedical Research Network (CIBERCV).

Citation: Díaz-Pérez A, Pérez B, Manich G, García-Aranda J, Navarro X, Penas C, Jiménez-Altayó F. Histone deacetylase inhibition by suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid during reperfusion promotes multifaceted brain and vascular protection in spontaneously hypertensive rats with transient ischaemic stroke. Biomed Pharmacother. 2024 Feb 20;172:116287. 10.1016/j.biopha.2024.116287. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38382328. (open-access)

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Wearable sticker sensor turns hand, face movements into communications

A new type of thin wearable sensor for people with disabilities could turn a hand, finger, or facial movement into a communication—no voice or touchscreen required.

The sensor could open new possibilities for rehabilitation applications and helping those with disabilities communicate more easily, say researchers in Beijing Normal University in China. The sensor was designed to be comfortable for long-term wear and detecting movements with high accuracy.

Communicating via gestures or facial expression

“For someone recovering from a stroke, these sensors could monitor wrist, finger or even facial movements to monitor their rehabilitation progression,” said researcher Kun Xiao. “For individuals with severe mobility or speech impairments, the sensors could translate gestures or facial expressions into words or commands, enabling them to communicate with others or interact with technology more easily.”

The sensors combine a soft, flexible material called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and an optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG). According to a cross-disciplinary team of researchers in optical, biomedical, software and electrical engineering from Beijing Normal University, the sensors showed a high level of sensitivity and accuracy during tests involving gesture recognition and communication assistance.

Fitness, athletics, health uses

The researchers note that the sensors could [also] be tailored for applications such as monitoring other health indicators like respiratory or heart rate by detecting subtle body movements, and for athletes or fitness enthusiasts to monitor and improve their form or technique in real time or be integrated into gaming systems for more immersive and interactive experiences.

Personalized assistive technologies

This new work is part of a larger project aimed at developing innovative assistive technologies and was inspired by the challenges faced by people with disabilities and those recovering from conditions like strokes, who often struggle with basic movements and communication.

“Traditional methods are either too cumbersome, lacked accuracy or weren’t versatile enough to cater to individual needs,” said Zhuo Wang from Beijing Normal University. “Our goal was to develop a wearable solution that was both precise in detecting gestures and comfortable for everyday use, offering a more personalized and adaptive approach to rehabilitation and assistance.”

Flexible, skin-friendly materials

To do this, the researchers created patches made from PDMS, a type of silicone elastomer that is very flexible and skin friendly. This allows people to wear them for long periods without irritation or discomfort. To give the patch its movement-sensing capability, the researchers embedded the PDMS with FBGs, a type of reflector that is etched into a short segment of optical fiber to reflect specific light wavelengths while transmitting all the others.

“We found that using a thicker PDMS patch caused a more pronounced wavelength shift. Leveraging this sensitivity-enhancing effect of PDMS allows these optical sensors to detect even the slightest bend of a finger or twist of a wrist,” said Chuanxin Teng from Guilin University of Electronic Technology.

The sensors can be applied to various parts of the body for a wide range of applications. A precise calibration method allows the sensors to be tailored to each user, making them adaptable to various applications.

Transforming movement into communication

To demonstrate the capabilities of their PDMS-embedded wearable FBG sensors, the researchers conducted a series of tests focusing on gesture recognition and communication assistance. After calibrating the sensors for individual participants, they attached the sensors to different parts of the body, such as the wrist and fingers, to detect various movements.

They also developed a system that enabled the sensors to translate simple gestures into commands or messages. For example, they used finger movements to spell out words based on Morse code.

For both tests, the sensors demonstrated a high level of sensitivity and accuracy in recognizing a wide range of gestures and translated them into words, showing their potential as an assistive technology for individuals with speech or mobility impairments.

Improvements

The researchers plan to make the sensor system smaller and more integrated so that it can be easily worn, as well as enhance the sensors’ ability to communicate wirelessly with smartphones, computers or medical devices, and to make sure they can withstand daily wear and tear, including exposure to moisture, heat and stretching.

This will allow users to interact with the technology and help caregivers or medical professionals monitor progress or data in real-time.

Citation: K. Xiao, Z. Wang, Y. Ye, C. Teng, R. Min, “PDMS-embedded wearable FBG sensors for gesture recognition and communication assistance,” Biomed. Opt. Express, Vol. 15, Issue 3, pp. 1892-1909 (2024). (open-access) https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.517104

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Ultrasound brain stimulation technique treats brain disorders more deeply and safely

Researchers in Korea have developed a new non-invasive brain-stimulation method with “tremendous potential for inducing ‘neural plasticity’ [the ability to change and adapt brain functions].”

Traditional noninvasive electrical and magnetic brain stimulation methods [such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)] are limited in spatial resolution and penetration depth, whlle deep-brain stimulation [such as Neuralink] has risks, such as tissue damage, inflammation and infection,” says Dr. Park Joo Min of the Center for Cognition and Sociality within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), senior author of an open-access paper in Science Advances.

Penetrating deeply and safely in the brain

The team used the “Patterned Low-Intensity Low-Frequency Ultrasound (LILFUS)” method to mimic the brain’s conventional patterns of theta (5 Hz) and gamma (30 Hz) oscillations observed during learning and memory processes.

The researchers delivered this ultrasound stimulation to the cerebral motor cortex in mice and observed significant improvements in motor (muscle movement), skill learning and the ability to retrieve food.

The research suggests new rehabilitation therapies for stroke survivors and individuals with motor impairments. The method could also be used to treat conditions such as depression, sensory impairments and cognitive disorders.

“The study has developed a new and safe neural regulation technology with long-lasting effects, but has also uncovered the molecular mechanism changes involved in brainwave-patterned ultrasound neural regulation,” Min said. “We plan to continue follow-up studies to apply this technology to the treatment of brain disorders related to abnormal brain excitation and inhibition and for the enhancement of cognitive functions.”

Citation: Kim, J., Phan, T. T., Lee, K., Kim, J. S., Lee, Y., Lee, J. M., Do, J., Lee, D., Kim, P., Lee, K. P., Park, J., Lee, C. J., & Park, J. M. (2024). Long-lasting forms of plasticity through patterned ultrasound-induced brainwave entrainment. Science Advances. https://doi.org/adk3198 (open access)

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Dual-energy harvesting device could power future wireless medical implants

Implantable biomedical devices—like pacemakers, insulin pumps and neurostimulators—are becoming smaller, but hurdles remain for powering them. A new wireless charging device developed by Penn State scientists could improve powering capability for implants while still being safe for our bodies, according to the researchers.

The new device can harvest energy from magnetic fields and ultrasound sources simultaneously, converting this energy to electricity to power implants within safety limits for human tissue, the scientists reported in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

Higher power miniaturized device

“Our device may unlock next-generation biomedical applications because it can generate 300% higher power than the current state-of-the-art devices,” said Bed Poudel, research professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State and co-author of the study. “By combining two energy sources in a single generator, power generated from a given volume of the device can be significantly improved, which can unlock many applications that were not possible before.”

Using this technology, battery-free bioelectronic devices could be miniaturized to millimeter-sized dimensions, making them easily implantable and allowing distributed networks of sensors and actuators to measure and manipulate physiological activity throughout the body. This would enable precise and adaptive bioelectronic therapies with minimal risks or interference with daily activities, according to the scientists.

Problems with current implants

Traditional implants like pacemakers are typically powered by batteries and charged using cables, with limited battery lifespan and required surgery to replace them—posing a risk of infection or other medical complications.

Charging or directly powering implants wirelessly could extend their lifespan, but conventional wireless charging technology (used for cell phones and electric vehicles, for example) may not be safe as implants continue to shrink. This requires increased power, which could be harmful to the body, say the researchers.

Converting a magnetic field and piezoelectric layer into a safe electric current

The new devices use a two-layer process for converting energy to electricity. One layer is magnetostrictive, which converts a magnetic field into stress. And the other is piezoelectric, which converts ultrasound energy (vibrations) into an electric field. The combination allows the device to generate an electric current without damaging tissue.

The technology also has implications for powering things like wireless sensor networks in smart buildings to monitor energy and operational patterns, and to use that information for remotely adjusting control systems, the scientists noted.

The National Science Foundation supported this work. Some of the researchers on this study received support from the DARPA MATRIX program and the Army RIF program.

Citation: Schneider, S., Lee, J.H. & Mathis, M.W. Learnable latent embeddings for joint behavioural and neural analysis. Nature 617, 360–368 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06031-6 (open-access)

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