I-Corps: Non-invasive ultrasound technology for tactile stimulation to create a sense of touch

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of small, wearable devices that deliver virtual tactile perception to non-invasively stimulate sensory nerves creating a sense of touch to the user. This will enable new immersive virtual experiences for remote K-12 learning, therapeutic healthcare for patients with cognitive and motor function needs, and precise tactile feedback during recreational gaming as well as training for competitive athletes. Near-term commercial applications appear focus on healthcare to provide increased sensitivity in rehabilitation for patients such as those with spinal cord injuries (SCI) that currently rely on large sensorimotor haptic feedback devices that use simple motors to briefly restore the sense of touch. This device is designed as a wristband that emits ultrasonic waves that may more precisely target nerve clusters in the brain and spinal cord to produce a more sensitive response. The technology may be expanded to other neurotechnology applications in healthcare, education, and entertainment. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a wristband that emits ultrasonic waves that may precisely and noninvasively target nerve clusters in the brain and spinal cord as well as other areas. Traditional neuromodulation is done using electrical current, but recent research has demonstrated that focal ultrasound stimulation has several advantages over electrical stimulation, including deeper penetration into tissue and increased spatio-temporal specificity. The proposed technology may be used to noninvasively target nerves that would require invasive procedures for the electrical field to reach (e.g., deep brain stimulation). Focal ultrasound stimulation previously has been used for neuromodulation in the central nervous system (e.g., activation of neural circuits) and in the peripheral nervous system (activation of cholinergic nerves in the spleen and bladder muscle control). The core of this innovation is based on research to determine exactly how to spatiotemporally stimulate neural cells. The proposed device will combine serial imaging using ultrasound with novel deep learning algorithms trained to segment different body segments including nerves and neural computational models that encode learned stimulation spatiotemporal parameters of the focal ultrasound pulse for naturalistic neuromodulation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.