Development of a battery-free ultrasonically powered functional electrical stimulator for movement restoration after paralyzing spinal cord injury

Should be able to be used in stroke rehab if ANYONE in stroke has any innovative functioning brain cells at all. But that will never occur. Stroke brains are fossilized and don't work, which is why they are in the stroke field. 

Development of a battery-free ultrasonically powered functional electrical stimulator for movement restoration after paralyzing spinal cord injury 

• Monzurul Alam†,
• Shuai Li†,
• Rakib Uddin Ahmed,
• Yat Man Yam,
• Suman Thakur,
• Xiao-Yun Wang,
• Dan Tang,
• Serena Ng and
• Yong-Ping ZhengEmail author

†Contributed equally

Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation201916:36

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12984-019-0501-4

©  The Author(s). 2019

• Received: 16 November 2018
• Accepted: 22 February 2019
• Published: 8 March 2019

Abstract

Background

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is used to restore movements in paretic limbs after severe paralyses resulting from neurological injuries such as spinal cord injury (SCI). Most chronic FES systems utilize an implantable electrical stimulator to deliver a small electric current to the targeted muscle or nerve to stimulate muscle contractions. These implanted stimulators are generally bulky, mainly due to the size of the batteries. Furthermore, these battery-powered stimulators are required to be explanted every few years for battery replacement which may result in surgical failures or infections. Hence, a wireless power transfer technique is desirable to power these implantable stimulators.

Methods

Conventional wireless power transduction faces significant challenges for safe and efficient energy transfer through the skin and deep into the body. Inductive and electromagnetic power transduction is generally used for very short distances and may also interfere with other medical measurements such as X-ray and MRI. To address these issues, we have developed a wireless, ultrasonically powered, implantable piezoelectric stimulator. The stimulator is encapsulated with biocompatible materials.

Results

The stimulator is capable of harvesting a maximum of 5.95 mW electric power at an 8-mm depth under the skin from an ultrasound beam with about 380 mW/cm² of acoustic intensity. The stimulator was implanted in several paraplegic rats with SCI. Our implanted stimulator successfully induced several hindlimb muscle contractions and restored leg movement.

Conclusions

A battery-free miniature (10 mm diameter × 4 mm thickness) implantable stimulator, developed in the current study is capable of directly stimulating paretic muscles through external ultrasound signals. The required cost to develop the stimulator is relatively low as all the components are off the shelf.