Development of Bioelectric Field Imaging Instrumentation

生物电场成像仪器的研制

• 批准号: 6833626
• 负责人: RICHARD Lee NUCCITELLI
• 金额: $ 63.48万
• 依托单位: BIOELECTROMED CORPORATION
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-01 至 2006-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6833626
• 关键词: biomedical equipment development; biosensor device; clinical biomedical equipment; clinical research; data collection methodology /evaluation; diagnosis design /evaluation; electric field; electrodes; electrophysiology; galvanic skin response; human subject; image processing; imaging /visualization /scanning; laboratory mouse; miniature biomedical equipment; noninvasive diagnosis; skin disorder; wound healing

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): For over a century we have known that human skin drives ionic current out of wounded regions. DuBois- Reymond (1848) used one of the earliest galvanometers to measure 1 microampere leaving wounds in his skin. This has been confirmed using modern techniques and we now know that this current is driven out of the wound by the transepithelial potential generated across the epidermis. As this wound current traverses the epidermis it generates a local electric field that points towards the wound from all directions around it. It is this signaling capability of the electric field that is most intriguing, yet no one has ever measured these electric fields in wounds. Electric fields can signal that a wound has occurred by exerting a force on charged molecules by electrophoresis or by influencing local skin cell movement by galvanotaxis. The movement of human skin cells can be strongly influenced by electric fields. Previous investigations found that human skin cells actively migrate towards the negative pole in fields of 10-400 mV/mm. It is very exciting that the field strengths we have recently measured in wounds during our Phase I SBIR research are identical to this. We successfully applied a new instrument called the Bioelectric Field Imager (BFI) to non-invasively measure this wound field in both mouse and human skin. We found that a field of 200 mV/mm is present immediately following wounding and persists until wound healing is complete. Moreover, this novel technique is noninvasive and allows these measurements to be made with minimal disturbance to the skin wound. During Phase II we will refine the design of the BFI to allow the measurement of skin wound fields on most surfaces of the human body. This will include eventually making the device much smaller and lighter so that it can be hand-held, and making it faster so that an image can be generated with only two seconds of data collection. We will accomplish this rapid signal acquisition by using a multi-sensor array in conjunction with simultaneous data acquisition from each sensor. These improvements will allow us to place the BFI on any body region much like a stethoscope and rapidly collect an image of the electric field in the skin beneath it. Once we have made these refinements to the BFI, we will evaluate its utility for the non-invasive quantification of the rate of wound healing as well as the diagnosis of wounds with abnormal electric fields. This will have many important applications to improving human health including the design of new electrical therapies for stimulating the healing of chronic wounds and possibly the early detection and diagnosis of skin diseases.

描述（由申请人提供）： 世纪以来，我们已经知道人体皮肤可以将离子电流从受伤部位排出。DuBois-Reymond（1848）使用最早的电流计之一测量1微安在他的皮肤上留下的伤口。这已被证实使用现代技术，我们现在知道，这个电流是由跨表皮产生的跨上皮电位驱动的伤口。当伤口电流穿过表皮时，它会产生一个局部电场，从伤口周围的各个方向指向伤口。最有趣的是电场的这种信号传递能力，但还没有人测量过伤口中的电场。电场可以通过电泳对带电分子施加力或通过趋电性影响局部皮肤细胞运动来发出伤口已经发生的信号。人体皮肤细胞的运动会受到电场的强烈影响。先前的研究发现，人类皮肤细胞在10-400 mV/mm的电场中主动向负极迁移。非常令人兴奋的是，我们最近在I期SBIR研究中在伤口中测量的场强与此相同。我们成功地应用了一种名为生物电场成像仪（BFI）的新仪器，以非侵入性方式测量小鼠和人类皮肤的伤口电场。我们发现，200 mV/mm的电场在受伤后立即出现，并持续到伤口完全愈合。此外，这种新技术是非侵入性的，并允许这些测量以最小的干扰皮肤伤口。在第二阶段，我们将完善BFI的设计，以允许测量人体大部分表面上的皮肤创面。这将包括最终使设备更小，更轻，以便它可以手持，并使其更快，以便只需两秒钟的数据收集就可以生成图像。我们将通过使用多传感器阵列结合每个传感器的同时数据采集来实现这种快速信号采集。这些改进将使我们能够将BFI放置在任何身体部位，就像听诊器一样，并快速收集其下方皮肤中的电场图像。一旦我们对BFI进行了这些改进，我们将评估其在伤口愈合率的非侵入性量化以及异常电场伤口的诊断方面的实用性。这将有许多重要的应用，以改善人类健康，包括设计新的电疗法，以刺激慢性伤口的愈合，并可能早期检测和诊断皮肤病。