Bioelectronics @ TU Delft

The 21st century will be the century in which we will unravel the intricacies of the brain and in which we will use electricity to interact with our electro-chemical mainframe better. At Border Sessions

Example of an electroceutical: a cochlear implant. Today, more than 250,000 people have cochlear implants worldwide.

Wouter Serdijn will explain how electroceuticals, the electronic counterparts of pharmaceuticals, can help to successfully treat neurological disorders. Further, he will sketch a technological avenue of their future development by making electroceuticals smaller, more energy efficient and more intelligent. Examples will be given for fully-implantable bionic ears and neurostimulators for the treatment of tinnitus, Tourette’s syndrome and epilepsy.

Vandaag ontving ik een email van een tinnituspatient met daarin een vraag over aan welk type neurostimulatie ten behoeve van de behandeling van tinnitus wij in Delft werken. Hieronder staat mijn antwoord, in de hoop dat het ook van nut kan zijn voor andere mensen.

Beste [naam afzender email],

In Delft proberen we de medische technologie een duwtje in de rug te geven door technische oplossingen te bieden voor de technische problemen waarmee medisch specialisten geconfronteerd worden in hun behandeling van patienten. Op het gebied van tinnitus werken we binnen mijn Sectie Bioelectronics nauw samen met Prof. Dirk de Ridder, verbonden aan de Universiteit van Otago in Dunedin, Nieuw Zeeland, en ook verbonden aan de tinnituskliniek van het St. Augustinus Ziekenhuis in Antwerpen. Omdat de TU Delft zelf geen medische bevoegdheden heeft moet ik iedere vraag t.a.v. behandeling of proefpersonen dus naar hem doorverwijzen.

Ik weet niet of Prof. de Ridder samenwerkt met Dr. Mark Williams. Ik vermoed dat ze elkaar zeker goed zullen kennen.

Ten aanzien van de neurostimulator waar wij in Delft aan werken: deze is bedoeld voor implantatie in het lichaam voor zeer ernstige vormen van tinnitus en werkt op basis van elektrische stimulatie, dus door middel van het elektrisch contact maken met de gehoorschors en deze stimuleren met elektrische pulsen. De ontwikkeling van dit type stimulator zal uiteindelijk moeten worden overgedragen aan een bedrijf dat ervaren is in het op de markt brengen van medische apparatuur voor implantatie, zoals Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, Biotronik, etc. Ik vermoed dat een dergelijke introductie pas op langere termijn mogelijk is, zeker niet binnen 5 jaar. Wel hoop ik met ons onderzoek en technische innovatie al op kortere termijn een bijdrage te kunnen leveren aan succesvolle dierproeven en klinische tests welke gebruik maken van nieuwe vormen van neurostimulatie t.b.v. de behandeling van tinnitus en aan het begrip van deze uitermate ernstige en vaak onderschatte aandoening waarover nog lang niet genoeg bekend is.

De stimulator zoals ontwikkeld wordt door de tinnituskliniek in Engeland, van Dr. Mark Williams, richt zich op mildere vormen van tinnitus en maakt veelal gebruik van een andere vorm van neuromodulatie: middels akoestische stimulatie. Deze akoestische stimulatie is bedoeld om de tinnitus te maskeren door middel van een harder, maar minder voorspelbaar, geluid, een beetje vergelijkbaar met wat er gebeurt wanneer mensen een ventilator aanzetten of luisteren naar zee-, trein- of andere “ruis-achtige” geluiden wanneer ze moeite hebben om in slaap te vallen. De App “White Noise” maakt hier gebruik van.

Ik hoop dat bovenstaande reactie antwoord geeft op uw vragen en ik wens u veel sterkte en succes.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Wouter Serdijn

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Today, I received the following link: http://vimeo.com/99011517.

Raphaël HOLT > Âtman from Le Fresnoy on Vimeo.

According to G.tec Medical Engineering (from its September 2014 newsletter): “Âtman is a performance that resides at the intersection of the neurosciences and dance. Using wireless electro-encephalographic technology, associated with BCI and EEG sonification processes, a performer’s brain waves are translated into sound waves in real time. The performer is joined by a dancer, and the duo evolves, each exploring the question of the Other.”

“This project is a piece of research and art about being, about presence and about encounter. We found inspiration in the practice of yoga, butoh and Ma as we immersed ourselves in a discovery of movement and immobility. Modified states of consciousness as well as meditation were fully part of the research from the outset. We were searching for an experience that was at once intimate and widely shared. This universal essence, Âtman written in Sanskrit, is the subject of this piece. We offer an experience, an invitation to see the invisible. The performers are asked to simply be. This calls for an incredible responsiveness, an uncommon attentiveness, so as not to construct, fabricate, act, over-perform, or preconceive. The performers were asked to address a simple and complex truth, which can be called presence. To be in the present and to be present. To be a being that can cast light on the forgotten, on the things that reside in the invisible. It began with this desire to listen to the intimate music of the mind, of the body at work. For both spectator and performer, the hope is to resonate in concert with one another, in the sense that matter itself resonates, collectively and individually, within acoustic forms that extend the space of this experience.”

“Âtman performance was produced by Le Fresnoy, national Studio for contemporary arts, in partnership with Guger Technologies. It uses the wireless EEG technology g.Nautilus and software platform OpenVibe and PureData.”

Today Cees-Jeroen and I were interviewed by RTL4. Click here.

arXiv logo

We pre-published an important paper on a new neurostimulation paradigm on arXiv. The paper can be found here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1406.7185v1.pdf.

Abstract: This paper investigates the efficacy of high frequency switched-mode neural stimulation. Instead of using a constant stimulation amplitude, the stimulus is switched on and off repeatedly with a high frequency (up to 100kHz) duty cycled signal. By means of tissue modeling that includes the dynamic properties of both the tissue material as well as the axon membrane, it is first shown that switched-mode stimulation depolarizes the cell membrane in a similar way as classical constant amplitude stimulation. These findings are subsequently verified using in vitro experiments in which the response of a Purkinje cell is measured due to a stimulation signal in the molecular layer of the cerebellum of a mouse. For this purpose a stimulator circuit is developed that is able to produce a monophasic high frequency switched-mode stimulation signal. The results confirm the modeling by showing that switched-mode stimulation is able to induce similar responses in the Purkinje cell as classical stimulation using a constant current source. This conclusion opens up possibilities for novel stimulation designs that can improve the performance of the stimulator circuitry. Care has to be taken to avoid losses in the system due to the higher operating frequency.

Authored by: M.N. van Dongen, F.E. Hoebeek, S.K.E. Koekkoek, C.I. De Zeeuw, W.A. Serdijn

Chipping a puppy

Yesterday I received a phone call from the Dutch NOS, the largest news organization in the Netherlands with the question whether the news about Martijn Aslander, “professional lifehacker”, who had an RFIC chip implanted in his hand, should be considered important from a news perspective. The answer is “No”. The implanted chip is hardly any more intelligent than those that cats, dogs and cattle are wearing already for many years and since the chip has no means of interaction with its owner, it is nothing more than an implanted passport or any other form of identification.

Aslander may perhaps be the first person in the Netherlands (if you do not count dogs, cats and cattle), but his heroism fades in the shadow of the true pioneer of cyborgs, Sir Kevin Warwick. See, e.g., http://www.kevinwarwick.com/. In the Netherlands and Belgium, true heroes are Eddy van der Velden and Dirk de Ridder (www.braininnovations.nl), who voluntarily had stimulation electrodes implanted to test alternative neurostimulation strategies and thereby contribute to finding better treatments for tinnitus and addiction. It is truly an honor and privilege to collaborate with them.

In the next few decades, implantable electronics could shift the focus of medical care from reactive, symptom-based diagnosis to early detection or prevention. Heralding that future is the Linq, a new cardiac monitor from medical device giant Medtronic. The company is already envisioning future versions of the implantable gadget, studded with sensors that will give doctors and patients reams of biometric information. The sensors could someday help athletes fine-tune their bodies for improved performance or let an elderly person live independently while his or her vitals are monitored remotely. Medtronic believes that it will eventually be seen as negligent not to have these sensors installed—whether you’re elderly and infirm, or young, fit, and healthy.

Read more on:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/biomedical/devices/medtronic-wants-to-implant-sensors-in-everyone/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=061214

Since its online publication on May 26, 2009, there has been a total of 3894 chapter downloads for the book “Ultra Low-Power Biomedical Signal Processing”, authored by Sandro Haddad and Wouter Serdijn.
More information can be found on the book’s web page: http://www.springer.com/engineering/signals/book/978-1-4020-9072-1.