Bo Wen, Lu Su, Yuan Zhang, Aiping Wang, Hongchen Zhao, Jianjun Wu, Zhongxue Gan, Lihua Zhang, Xiaoyang Kang
{"title":"Fabrication of micro-wire stent electrode as a minimally invasive endovascular neural interface for vascular electrocorticography using laser ablation method.","authors":"Bo Wen, Lu Su, Yuan Zhang, Aiping Wang, Hongchen Zhao, Jianjun Wu, Zhongxue Gan, Lihua Zhang, Xiaoyang Kang","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc266","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc266","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Objective</i>. Minimally invasive endovascular stent electrode is a currently emerging technology in neural engineering with minimal damage to the neural tissue. However, the typical stent electrode still requires resistive welding and is relatively large, limiting its application mainly on the large animal or thick vessels. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of laser ablation of micro-wire stent electrode with a diameter as small as 25μmand verified it in the superior sagittal sinus (SSS) of a rat.<i>Approach</i>. We have developed a laser ablation technology to expose the electrode sites of the micro-wire on both sides without damaging the wire itself. During laser ablation, we applied a new method to fix and realign the micro-wires. The micro-wire stent electrode was fabricated by carefully assemble the micro-wire and stent. We tested the electrochemical performances of the electrodes as a neural interface. Finally, we deployed the stent electrode in a rat to verified the feasibility.<i>Main result</i>. Based on the proposed micro-wire stent electrode, we demonstrated that the stent electrode could be successfully deployed in a rat. With the benefit of the smaller design and laser fabrication technology, it can be fitted into a catheter with an inner diameter of 0.6mm. The vascular electrocorticography can be detected during the acute recording, making it promising in the application of small animals and thin vessels.<i>Significance</i>. The method we proposed combines the advantages of endovascular micro-wire electrode and stent, helping make the electrodes smaller. This study provided an alternative method for deploying micro-wire electrodes into thinner vessels as an endovascular neural interface.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143662345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Diana E Gherman, Laurens R Krol, Marius Klug, Thorsten O Zander
{"title":"An investigation of a passive BCI's performance for different body postures and presentation modalities.","authors":"Diana E Gherman, Laurens R Krol, Marius Klug, Thorsten O Zander","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adb58b","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adb58b","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Passive brain-computer interfaces (passive BCIs, pBCIs) enable computers to unobtrusively decipher aspects of a user's mental state in real time from recordings of brain activity, e.g. electroencephalography (EEG). When used during human-computer interaction (HCI), this allows a computer to dynamically adapt for enhancing the subjective user experience. For transitioning from controlled laboratory environments to practical applications, understanding BCI performance in real contexts is of utmost importance. Here, Virtual Reality (VR) can play a unique role: both as a fully controllable simulation of a realistic environment and as an independent, increasingly popular real application. Given the potential of VR as a dynamic and controllable environment, and the capability of pBCIs to enable novel modes of interaction, it is tempting to envision a future where pBCI and VR are seamlessly integrated. However, the simultaneous use of these two technologies-both of which are head-mounted-presents new challenges. Due to their immediate proximity, electromagnetic artifacts can arise, contaminating the EEG. Furthermore, the active movements promoted by VR can induce mechanical and muscular artifacts in the EEG. The varying body postures and display preferences of users further complicate the practical application of pBCIs. To address these challenges, the current study investigates the influence of body posture (sitting Versus standing) and display media (computer screen Versus VR) on the performance of a pBCI in assessing cognitive load. Our results show that these conditions indeed led to some changes in the EEG data; nevertheless, the ability of pBCIs to detect cognitive load remained largely unaffected. However, when a classifier trained in one context (body posture or modality) was applied to another (e.g., cross-task application), reductions in classification accuracy were observed. As HCI moves towards increasingly adaptive and more interactive designs, these findings support the expansive potential of pBCIs in VR contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143413302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pedro Manuel Crispim da Costa da Encarnação, Pedro Manuel Mendes Correia, Fabiana de Meneses de Meneses Ribeiro, Joao F C A Veloso
{"title":"Timing Performance Evaluation of a Dual-Axis Rotational PET System According to NEMA NU 4-2008 Standards: A Simulation Study.","authors":"Pedro Manuel Crispim da Costa da Encarnação, Pedro Manuel Mendes Correia, Fabiana de Meneses de Meneses Ribeiro, Joao F C A Veloso","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc5f5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2057-1976/adc5f5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging's diagnostic accuracy is dependent on the scanner design and image quality, which is affected by several factors including the coincidence timing window (CTW). NEMA NU 4-2008 procedures are commonly used to assess and compare PET systems performance, including dual rotation technologies like easyPET.3D, known for high-spatial resolution and reduced parallax contribution.
Aim: This study aims to identify easyPET.3D's optimal performance based on NEMA standards. In addition, explores the impact of different CTWs on PET image quality by comparing simulated electronics capable of a 300 ps CTW with a 40 ns CTW.
Results: When the data is filtered by a 40 ns CTW, a sub-millimetre resolution at the field-of-view (FoV) centre and a constant behaviour in the radial direction are achieved. The absolute sensitivity was 0.18% with a maximum value of 0.31%, for a 15 mm transverse FoV. The noise equivalent count rate peaked at 18 MBq with 249 cps. Recovery coefficients ranged from 17% to 90%, and spilled-over ratios were 0.32 (water) and 0.41 (air).
Conclusions: A shorter 300 ps CTW primarily impacted PET dynamic range, allowing higher activity acquisitions, with no significant changes in resolution and sensitivity under NEMA test conditions. As for the image quality test, the 300 ps CTW images have less background, better SOR values, and similar RC values when comparing the 40 ns CTW.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143717891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hyojun Park, Jung-In Kim, Chang Heon Choi, Jong Min Park, Seonghee Kang, Hyeongmin Jin, Eui Kyu Chie, Jaeman Son
{"title":"Evaluation of internal scatter contribution to gonadal dose in colorectal radiotherapy.","authors":"Hyojun Park, Jung-In Kim, Chang Heon Choi, Jong Min Park, Seonghee Kang, Hyeongmin Jin, Eui Kyu Chie, Jaeman Son","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc1cf","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc1cf","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Colorectal cancer is among the most common cancers in terms of both incidence and mortality. External beam radiotherapy is frequently used to treat colorectal cancer. In colorectal radiotherapy, the gonad is considered as an organ that must be spared owing to its radiosensitivity. However, only a few medical facilities use gonadal shields. In addition, the contribution of internal scatter to the gonadal dose should be considered because it is unavoidable. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the gonad shield according to its thickness and to evaluate the internal scatter contribution during the rectal radiotherapy. First, a Monte Carlo simulation was performed using a simplified patient phantom that consisted of the patient's body and gonad. The dose to the gonad was assessed according to the thickness of the gonad shield, beam direction, and the distance between the gonad and irradiation field. The internal scatter contribution was calculated as the ratio of the gonadal doses with and without a shield. Second, a mesh-type reference computational phantom (MRCP) was employed to calculate the internal scatter contribution to the gonadal dose in rectal radiotherapy. Subsequently, the contribution of internal scatter was investigated by analyzing the dosimetry results in actual patient cases. The gonad shield reduced 50-75% of the gonadal dose according to its thickness from 0.5-3 cm. The internal scatter contribution ranged from 55-65% for the simplified phantom, whereas it was 75% on average for MRCP. The dosimetry results from the clinical case were similar to those of both the simplified phantom and MRCP, that is, the internal scatter contribution varied from 55-77% in most cases. These results are expected to improve the accuracy of rectal radiotherapy and benefit radiation shielding of the gonads.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143655597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Imen Fourati Kallel, Jalila Kaouthar Kammoun, Hanen Lajnef, Saif Ben Ali
{"title":"Intelligent progress monitoring of healing wound tissues based on classification models.","authors":"Imen Fourati Kallel, Jalila Kaouthar Kammoun, Hanen Lajnef, Saif Ben Ali","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc137","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc137","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The evolution of wound monitoring techniques has seen a significant shift from traditional methods like ruler-based measurements to the use of AI-assisted assessment of wound tissues. This progression has been driven by the need for more accurate, efficient, and non-invasive methods for wound assessment and treatment planning. The proposed approach aims to automate wound analysis and reduce efforts to manage chronic wounds. The snake's approach is used to extract wound areas and geometrical measures are used to monitor the rate of wound healing. A segmentation based on the color thresholding and K-means technique was carried out and demonstrated the effectiveness of the thresholding technique in mapping the wound tissues. The three proportions of wound tissues necrosis, slough, granulation and wound size are combined with three features from the patient's medical record and transmitted to the Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naive Bayes (NB) and Decision Tree (DT) classifiers. Finally, this work is ended with a comparative study that shows the efficiency and the interest of the proposed approach.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143647113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impact of Asymmetric Stenosis and Heart Rate on the Left Coronary Artery Hemodynamics in Elderly Patients: A 3D Computational Study.","authors":"Asif Equbal, Paragmoni Kalita, Farhin Iqbal","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adc45f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/2057-1976/adc45f","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The left coronary main (LCM) artery and its branches, particularly the left anterior descending (LAD) artery, are highly prone to atherosclerosis, especially as arterial stiffness increases with age. Irregularities in arterial geometry further contribute to the development of asymmetric plaques, underscoring the importance of three-dimensional (3D) hemodynamic studies, which remain limited in the literature. Moreover, no existing research explores how hemodynamic variables change with different heart rates in the presence of asymmetric plaque, which is essential for assessing the disease severity and progression. To address this gap, our study conducts a 3D numerical analysis of the hemodynamic effects of heart rate (HR) and degree of stenosis (DOS) with asymmetric plaques in the LAD branch. The hemodynamic parameters -primary velocity, time-averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS), oscillatory shear index (OSI), and relative residence time (RRT) - are analyzed to correlate HR and DOS with disease progression and severity. Analysis based on all these hemodynamic variables reveals that the atheroprone regions on the outer lateral walls expand as the DOS increases for a given HR. Conversely, such regions shrink in size as the HR increases for fixed DOS. While the inner lateral walls are safe in terms of OSI and RRT, they remain atheroprone due to alarmingly low TAWSS, especially at 75% DOS. At 45% DOS, TAWSS exceeds the upper-critical limit of 15 Pa at 120 beats per minute (bpm), making the branch thrombosis-prone. At 60% and 75% DOS, the thrombosis threshold is crossed at 100 bpm and at 75 bpm, respectively. Based on the threshold values, TAWSS is found to be a more conservative marker for assessing cardiovascular risks associated with these plaques compared to OSI and RRT.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143699227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Alterations in functional connectivity of the brain during postural balance maintenance with auditory stimuli: a stabilometry and electroencephalogram study.","authors":"Lyubov Oknina, Ekaterina Strelnikova, Li-Fong Lin, Margarita Kashirina, Andrey Slezkin, Vladimir Zakharov","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adbf26","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adbf26","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Objectives.</i>In daily life, individuals continuously integrate motor and cognitive tasks, a process that is made possible by multisensory integration within the brain. Despite its importance, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the integration of stimuli from different sensory modalities remain unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the characteristics of functional connectivity (FC) in healthy adults during a balance task with additional auditory stimuli.<i>Material</i>s<i>& Methods.</i>This study involved the simultaneous recording of stabilometry and electroencephalogram (EEG) in 17 healthy volunteers. The experimental design included two tasks. In the first task, participants were required to maintain their center of pressure on a stabilometric platform while receiving visual feedback on body position (VBF). In the second task, participants performed the same task but with the addition of auditory stimuli in the form of music (VBF+MUSIC). The FCs values of EEG signals were analyzed using the coherence method.<i>Results.</i>Analysis of the stabilometric data revealed that the most significant differences between the tasks were observed in the dynamic indicators related to the maintenance of the vertical body position. The values of the Quality of the balance function decreased with the expected increase in the cognitive load. EEG analysis showed that the value of functional connectivity (FC) was lower in VBF+MUSIC compared to VBF. Significant difference of FCs was detected between the right primary auditory cortex and associative auditory cortex involved in delta and theta rhythms that may reflect difference in auditory data processing, whereas differences in alpha and beta rhythms were found in the parietal region, which may reflect different level of attention.<i>Conclusion.</i>This study demonstrated that the presence of auditory stimuli leads to changes in postural balance indicators that specifically reflect oscillations in the sagittal plane. These findings suggest multiple neurophysiological levels of postural control in multisensory environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143603841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander Schilling, Max Aehle, Johan Alme, Gergely Gábor Barnaföldi, Gábor Bíró, Tea Bodova, Vyacheslav Borshchov, Anthony van den Brink, Viljar Eikeland, Gregory Feofilov, Christoph Garth, Nicolas R Gauger, Ola Grøttvik, Håvard Helstrup, Sergey Igolkin, Jacob G Johansen, Ralf Keidel, Chinorat Kobdaj, Tobias Kortus, Viktor Leonhardt, Shruti Mehendale, Raju Ningappa Mulawade, Odd Harald Odland, George O'Neill, Gábor Papp, Thomas Peitzmann, Helge Egil Seime Pettersen, Pierluigi Piersimoni, Maksym Protsenko, Max Rauch, Attiq Ur Rehman, Matthias Richter, Dieter Röhrich, Joshua Santana, Joao Seco, Arnon Songmoolnak, Ákos Sudár, Ganesh Tambave, Ihor Tymchuk, Kjetil Ullaland, Monika Varga-Kofarago, Boris Wagner, RenZheng Xiao, Shiming Yang
{"title":"Modeling charge collection in silicon pixel detectors for proton therapy applications.","authors":"Alexander Schilling, Max Aehle, Johan Alme, Gergely Gábor Barnaföldi, Gábor Bíró, Tea Bodova, Vyacheslav Borshchov, Anthony van den Brink, Viljar Eikeland, Gregory Feofilov, Christoph Garth, Nicolas R Gauger, Ola Grøttvik, Håvard Helstrup, Sergey Igolkin, Jacob G Johansen, Ralf Keidel, Chinorat Kobdaj, Tobias Kortus, Viktor Leonhardt, Shruti Mehendale, Raju Ningappa Mulawade, Odd Harald Odland, George O'Neill, Gábor Papp, Thomas Peitzmann, Helge Egil Seime Pettersen, Pierluigi Piersimoni, Maksym Protsenko, Max Rauch, Attiq Ur Rehman, Matthias Richter, Dieter Röhrich, Joshua Santana, Joao Seco, Arnon Songmoolnak, Ákos Sudár, Ganesh Tambave, Ihor Tymchuk, Kjetil Ullaland, Monika Varga-Kofarago, Boris Wagner, RenZheng Xiao, Shiming Yang","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adbf9c","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adbf9c","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Objective.</i>Monolithic active pixel sensors are used for charged particle tracking in many applications, from medical physics to astrophysics. The Bergen pCT collaboration designed a sampling calorimeter for proton computed tomography, based entirely on the ALICE PIxel DEtector (ALPIDE). The same telescope can be used for in-situ range verification in particle therapy. An accurate charge diffusion model is required to convert the deposited energy from Monte Carlo simulations to a cluster of pixels, and to estimate the deposited energy, given an experimentally observed cluster.<i>Approach.</i>We optimize the parameters of different charge diffusion models to experimental data for both proton computed tomography and proton range verification, collected at the Danish Centre for Particle Therapy. We then evaluate the performance of downstream tasks to investigate the impact of charge diffusion modeling.<i>Main results.</i>We find that it is beneficial to optimize application-specific models, with a power law working best for proton computed tomography, and a model based on a 2D Cauchy-Lorentz distribution giving better agreement for range verification. We further highlight the importance of evaluating the downstream tasks with multiple approaches to obtain a range of expected performance metrics for the application.<i>Significance.</i>This work demonstrates the influence of the charge diffusion model on downstream tasks, and recommends a new model for proton range verification with an ALPIDE-based pixel telescope.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143613218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reza Bahrami Gorji, Mohammad Mohammadi, Bahador Makkiabadi
{"title":"Novel multiple focal point technique for laser-induced shear wave generation in deep tissue: simulation insights.","authors":"Reza Bahrami Gorji, Mohammad Mohammadi, Bahador Makkiabadi","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adb755","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adb755","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Purpose</i>. Laser applications in biomedical imaging have several decades of history; however, some unexplored corners remain for study. While previous studies contain massive data on photoacoustic imaging, optical coherence imaging/elastography, and surface acoustic waves, the generation of shear waves in bulk by laser remained rarely investigated. Here, we study the applicability of multipoint laser exposure to generate deep tissue shear waves, which have potential applications in dynamic elastography.<i>Method</i>. Previous studies used single shots of laser to induce shear waves and create weak waves. Based on this, we suggest a multipoint approach to enhancing the amplitude of the shear wave in bulk. These approaches contain supersonic exposure, overlay Mach 1, and comb-push exposure in a finite element simulation environment.<i>Result</i>. Although the results showed a linear relationship between laser power and shear wave amplitude, the supersonic and overlay exposure increased the amplitude from 15 nm to over 60 nm and 230 nm, respectively.<i>Conclusion</i>. Our approaches showed a potentially successful increase in shear wave amplitude in the simulation environment. However, experimental data still need to be investigated before these techniques can be suggested for laser-induced shear wave elastography in the deep medium.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143447645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Computational modeling of neuromuscular activation by transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation to the lower back.","authors":"Mohigul Nasimova, Niranjan Khadka, Marom Bikson","doi":"10.1088/2057-1976/adbf9d","DOIUrl":"10.1088/2057-1976/adbf9d","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><i>Objectives.</i>Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) to the lower back is an established electrical therapy for acute and chronic back pain. The efficacy and mechanisms of lower back TENS depend on the penetration depth of electrical current. We compare the intensity and spatial extent (depth) of current flow in the body during TENS with varied electrode positions/shapes on the human back.<i>Materials and Methods.</i>A high-resolution MRI-derived anatomical model of the back was developed, considering major tissue compartments, including skin and muscles. TENS with upper and lower back electrode positions and varied electrode shapes (square, circular, rectangular) were simulated. An exemplary 50 mA current was applied under quasistatic approximation and quasi-uniform electric field assumption of 6.15 V m<sup>-1</sup>(low), 12.3 V m<sup>-1</sup>(mid), and 24.6 V m<sup>-1</sup>(high) neuromuscular activation thresholds were considered.<i>Results.</i>Under all simulated TENS conditions (50 mA), electric fields at the skin exceed the high threshold (consistent with peripheral nerve activation) and at least some muscle regions exceed the mid threshold. Muscle activation was influenced by the anatomy of muscle in the medial-lateral direction and upper-lower back. The electrode shape had minimal effect on deep tissue current penetration.<i>Conclusions.</i>Our simulations indicate significant current penetration into back tissue (electric fields above low threshold) to >8 cm in all TENS conditions simulated, consistent with nerve and muscle activation.<i>Significance.</i>Anatomically precise models of upper and lower back TENS show current penetration to deep muscle, supporting direct muscle stimulation driving clinical benefits.</p>","PeriodicalId":8896,"journal":{"name":"Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143613215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}