Development of Bioelectric Field Imaging Instrumentation

描述(由申请人提供)： 一个多世纪以来，我们已经知道，人类皮肤会将离子电流从受伤的区域赶走。Dubois-Reymond(1848)使用最早的电流计之一测量了1微安，在他的皮肤上留下了伤口。这一点已经用现代技术得到了证实，我们现在知道，这种电流是通过跨表皮产生的跨上皮电位从伤口中流出的。当这种缠绕电流穿过表皮时，它会产生一个局部电场，该电场从周围的各个方向指向伤口。最耐人寻味的是电场的这种信号能力，但还没有人在伤口上测量过这些电场。电场可以通过对带电分子施加电泳力或通过趋电作用影响局部皮肤细胞运动来发出伤口发生的信号。人体皮肤细胞的运动会受到电场的强烈影响。以往的研究发现，在10-400 mV/mm的电场中，人体皮肤细胞会主动向负极迁移。非常令人兴奋的是，我们最近在第一阶段SBIR研究期间在创伤中测量的场强与此完全相同。我们成功地应用了一种名为生物电场成像仪(BFI)的新仪器，非侵入性地测量了小鼠和人类皮肤的创伤野。我们发现，在创伤后立即出现200 mV/mm的磁场，并持续到伤口愈合完成。此外，这项新技术是非侵入性的，可以在对皮肤创伤的干扰最小的情况下进行这些测量。在第二阶段，我们将改进BFI的设计，以允许测量人体大部分表面的皮肤创伤野。这将包括最终使设备变得更小、更轻，以便可以手持，并使其速度更快，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和来自每个传感器的同步数据采集来完成这一快速信号采集。这些改进将允许我们将BFI放置在身体的任何区域，就像听诊器一样，并快速收集其下方皮肤内的电场图像。一旦我们对BFI进行了这些改进，我们将评估它在无创性量化伤口愈合率以及诊断电场异常伤口方面的作用。这将对改善人类健康有许多重要的应用，包括设计新的电疗法以促进慢性伤口的愈合，并可能早期发现和诊断皮肤病。

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.