Recent advances in flexible materials, nanomanufacturing, and system integration have provided a great opportunity to develop wearable flexible hybrid electronics for human healthcare, diagnostics, and therapeutics. However, existing medical devices still rely on rigid electronics with many wires and separate components, which hinders wireless, comfortable, continuous monitoring of health‐related human motions. Advanced materials and system integration technologies are introduced that enable soft, active wireless, thin‐film bioelectronics. This low‐modulus, highly flexible wearable electronic system incorporates a nanomembrane wireless circuit and functional chip components enclosed by a soft elastomeric membrane. It can be gently and seamlessly mounted on the skin, while offering comfortable, highly sensitive and accurate detection of head movements. The wireless, skin‐like bioelectronic system (SKINTRONICS) is utilized for quantitative diagnostics of cervical dystonia (CD), which is characterized by involuntary abnormal head postures and repetitive head movements, sometimes with neck muscle pain. A set of analytical and experimental studies shows a soft system packaging, hard–soft materials integration, and quantitative assessment of physiological signals detected by the SKINTRONICS. In vivo demonstration, involving 10 human subjects, finds the device feasible for use in CD measurement.
Skeletal muscle has a remarkable regeneration capacity to recover its structure and function after injury, except for the traumatic loss of critical muscle volume, called volumetric muscle loss (VML). Although many extremity VML models have been conducted, craniofacial VML has not been well‐studied due to unavailable in vivo assay tools. Here, this paper reports a wireless, noninvasive nanomembrane system that integrates skin‐wearable printed sensors and electronics for real‐time, continuous monitoring of VML on craniofacial muscles. The craniofacial VML model, using biopsy punch‐induced masseter muscle injury, shows impaired muscle regeneration. To measure the electrophysiology of small and round masseter muscles of active mice during mastication, a wearable nanomembrane system with stretchable graphene sensors that can be laminated to the skin over target muscles is utilized. The noninvasive system provides highly sensitive electromyogram detection on masseter muscles with or without VML injury. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the wireless sensor can monitor the recovery after transplantation surgery for craniofacial VML. Overall, the presented study shows the enormous potential of the masseter muscle VML injury model and wearable assay tool for the mechanism study and the therapeutic development of craniofacial VML.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1648035
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10366900
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Advanced Science
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 17
- ISSN:
- 2198-3844
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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