Adaptive Thermal Management for Next-Generation Implantable Devices

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As the electronics shrink in size and system-on-chips become more efficient, smart, complex, and functionally capable, implantable medical devices are emerging as the desired, and in many cases, the only viable therapeutic solutions for some of the most serious drug refractory (i.e. resistant to treatment by medication) types of chronic illnesses, such as Parkinson's disease, chronic pain, epilepsy, and diabetes, which prevalence is rapidly increasing in the aging industrial societies. However, with increasing functionalities and associated complexities of implantable medical devices, potential thermal damage to tissues around the implants becomes a new challenge facing the industry since exposing the surrounding tissue of a biomedical implant to a temperature above the safe limits can cause irreversible damage in the long run, similar to the detrimental effects of a long lasting fever. Real-time thermal management, as proposed in this project, can enable the emerging implantable medical devices of the future to achieve significant improvement in efficacy, functionality, and performance, while providing an additional safety mechanism for the recipients in the lifetime of a device. This research project aims to establish the theoretical foundation and applied framework of adaptive thermal management for the next generation high-performance implantable medical devices with growing functionalities and associated complexities. This project consists of five main research components: (1) creating computationally efficient models to capture thermal dynamics in various types of tissues for real-time thermal management in implantable medical devices; (2) investigating the thermal impact, and establishing guidelines on thermal modeling and management for implantable medical devices under different operation conditions; (3) developing an adaptive thermal management framework that enables safe and smart operation of the high-performance implantable medical devices; (4) developing a test vehicle for comprehensive evaluation of the thermal management algorithms; and (5) evaluating the developed models and thermal management framework through in vitro experiments in an environment that closely resembles the human body and its blood perfusion using phantoms filled with circulating tissue-simulant fluids. This project will significantly advance the understanding of thermal impact of the high-performance implantable medical devices, and enable the smart and safe operation of the next-generation implantable medical devices with growing functionalities and associated complexities. In addition, the thermal management framework can be adapted to applications using closed-loop implantable medical device systems to monitor a patient's disease state and modulate the delivery of therapeutic drugs or stimuli, which is another strong emerging technical area, as well as other applications with thermal concerns. The educational components of this project comprise a model designed for a multiyear, multidisciplinary undergraduate research team to attract and retain students, and stimulate their research interests by strategically managing the team and assigning tasks to individuals, in addition to providing research opportunities and mentoring for graduate students.