Injectable wireless microstimulators based on electronic rectification: eAXONs
Event details
| Date | 25.02.2016 |
| Hour | 15:00 › 16:00 |
| Speaker | Prof. Antoni Ivorra, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona |
| Location |
SV1717a
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Implantation of most electrical stimulation systems requires complex surgeries which hamper their use for neuroprosthetics. In particular, previously developed systems based on central stimulation units wired to the stimulation electrodes are not adequate for applications in which a large number of sites must be individually stimulated over large and mobile body parts, thus hindering neuroprostheses for patients suffering from paralysis due to spinal cord injury or other neurological disorders. A solution to these challenges could consist in developing addressable single-channel wireless microstimulators which could be implanted with simple procedures such as injection. And, indeed, such approach has been proposed and tried in the past. However, previous attempts have not achieved success because the developed implants were stiff and too bulky. Further miniaturization has been prevented until now because of the use of inductive coupling and batteries as energy sources.
As an alternative, we are exploring a method in which the implanted microstimulators operate as rectifiers of bursts of innocuous high frequency currents supplied through skin electrodes shaped as garments (J Neural Eng. 2015; 12(6): 066010, PLoS One. 2015, 10(7): e0131666). This approach has the potential to allow the development of ultrathin (< 0.5 mm) elongated microstimulators mostly built with flexible and stretchable materials. Because of such feature, and because of their intended functionality, we coined the name “Electronic Axons” (eAXONs) for them.
Bio: Tenured Associate Professor and Serra Húnter Fellow at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). Before obtaining tenure in December 2014, he benefited from a Ramón y Cajal fellowship and a Marie Curie grant at the UPF for five years.
Prior to joining the UPF, he enjoyed a three-year postdoctoral position at the University of California at Berkeley (2005-2008) followed by an appointment as Assistant Research Engineer at the same institution for a year. He then moved to Villejuif, France, for an eight-month postdoctoral position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) - Institut Gustave Roussy. During 1998-2005, he was with the Biomedical Applications Group of the Centre Nacional de Microelectrònica, Bellaterra, Spain. He received a PhD in Electronics Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, in 2005.
His main research topics are electroporation, particularly for cancer treatments, electrical bioimpedance for medical diagnosis and electrical stimulation for neuroprosthetics.
As an alternative, we are exploring a method in which the implanted microstimulators operate as rectifiers of bursts of innocuous high frequency currents supplied through skin electrodes shaped as garments (J Neural Eng. 2015; 12(6): 066010, PLoS One. 2015, 10(7): e0131666). This approach has the potential to allow the development of ultrathin (< 0.5 mm) elongated microstimulators mostly built with flexible and stretchable materials. Because of such feature, and because of their intended functionality, we coined the name “Electronic Axons” (eAXONs) for them.
Bio: Tenured Associate Professor and Serra Húnter Fellow at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). Before obtaining tenure in December 2014, he benefited from a Ramón y Cajal fellowship and a Marie Curie grant at the UPF for five years.
Prior to joining the UPF, he enjoyed a three-year postdoctoral position at the University of California at Berkeley (2005-2008) followed by an appointment as Assistant Research Engineer at the same institution for a year. He then moved to Villejuif, France, for an eight-month postdoctoral position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) - Institut Gustave Roussy. During 1998-2005, he was with the Biomedical Applications Group of the Centre Nacional de Microelectrònica, Bellaterra, Spain. He received a PhD in Electronics Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, in 2005.
His main research topics are electroporation, particularly for cancer treatments, electrical bioimpedance for medical diagnosis and electrical stimulation for neuroprosthetics.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Center for Neuroprosthetics
Contact
- cnp@epfl.ch