Lie-detecting software uses real court case

What does lying look like?

By studying videos from high-stakes court cases, University of Michigan researchers are building unique lie-detecting software based on real-world data.

Their prototype considers both the speaker's words and gestures, and unlike a polygraph, it doesn't need to touch the subject in order to work. In experiments, it was up to 75 percent accurate in identifying who was being deceptive (as defined by trial outcomes), compared with humans' scores of just above 50 percent.

With the software, the researchers say they've identified several tells. Lying individuals moved their hands more. They tried to sound more certain. And, somewhat counterintuitively, they looked their questioners in the eye a bit more often than those presumed to be telling the truth, among other behaviors.

The system might one day be a helpful tool for security agents, juries and even mental health professionals, the researchers say.

To develop the software, the team used machine-learning techniques to train it on a set of 120 video clips from media coverage of actual trials. They got some of their clips from the website of The Innocence Project, a national organization that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted.

The "real world" aspect of the work is one of the main ways it's different.

"In laboratory experiments, it's difficult to create a setting that motivates people to truly lie. The stakes are not high enough," said Rada Mihalcea, professor of computer science and engineering who leads the project with Mihai Burzo, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UM-Flint. "We can offer a reward if people can lie well--pay them to convince another person that something false is true. But in the real world there is true motivation to deceive."

The videos include testimony from both defendants and witnesses. In half of the clips, the subject is deemed to be lying. To determine who was telling the truth, the researchers compared their testimony with trial verdicts.

To conduct the study, the team transcribed the audio, including vocal fill such as "um, ah, and uh." They then analyzed how often subjects used various words or categories of words. They also counted the gestures in the videos using a standard coding scheme for interpersonal interactions that scores nine different motions of the head, eyes, brow, mouth and hands.

The researchers fed the data into their system and let it sort the videos. When it used input from both the speaker's words and gestures, it was 75 percent accurate in identifying who was lying. That's much better than humans, who did just better than a coin-flip.

"People are poor lie detectors," Mihalcea said. "This isn't the kind of task we're naturally good at. There are clues that humans give naturally when they are being deceptive, but we're not paying close enough attention to pick them up. We're not counting how many times a person says 'I' or looks up. We're focusing on a higher level of communication."

In the clips of people lying, the researchers found common behaviors:

• Scowling or grimacing of the whole face. This was in 30 percent of lying videos vs. 10 percent of truthful ones.
• Looking directly at the questioner--in 70 percent of deceptive clips vs. 60 percent of truthful.
• Gesturing with both hands--in 40 percent of lying clips, compared with 25 percent of the truthful.
• Speaking with more vocal fill such as "um." This was more common during deception.
• Distancing themselves from the action with words such as "he" or "she," rather than "I" or "we," and using phrases that reflected certainty.

This effort is one piece of a larger project.

"We are integrating physiological parameters such as heart rate, respiration rate and body temperature fluctuations, all gathered with non-invasive thermal imaging," Burzo said.

The researchers are also exploring the role of cultural influence.

"Deception detection is a very difficult problem," Burzo said. "We are getting at it from several different angles."

For this work, the researchers themselves classified the gestures, rather than having the computer do it. They're in the process of training the computer to do that.

The research team also includes research fellows Veronica Perez-Rosas and Mohamed Abouelenien. A paper on the findings titled "Deception Detection using Real-life Trial Data" was presented at the International Conference on Multimodal Interaction and is published in the 2015 conference proceedings. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, John Templeton Foundation and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Students build electric-powered personal flying machine

Snowstorm -- personal flying machine by NUS students.

A team of eight engineering students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have successfully built Singapore's first personal flying machine, dubbed Snowstorm. Comprising an intricate design of motors, propellers and inflated landing gear set within a hexagonal frame, Snowstorm is an electric-powered aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing that can be controlled by a single person seated within it. The NUS team envisions this as a clean and simple way to realise our dreams of flying.

The personal flying machine was built over a one-year period, under the auspices of FrogWorks, a collaboration between NUS Faculty of Engineering's Design-Centric Programme (DCP) and the University Scholars Programme (USP). FrogWorks engages students in the study, design and construction of clean leisure craft, a rapidly growing segment of green technology. Previous FrogWorks projects include the conversion of a sport motorcycle and a yacht from petrol to electric propulsion.

Personal flight -- from fantasy to reality

In its current prototype, the personal flying machine can bear the load of a single person up to 70kg for a flight time of about 5 minutes. Rather than a mode of transportation, the team envisions this more as an electric aircraft for personal recreational use in a large indoor space, to satisfy one's desire to fly freely.

"A common trope in popular science fiction is the projection of humans flying on our own -- think the Jetsons, or even Back to the Future. NUS' Snowstorm shows that a personal flying machine is a very real possibility, primarily as a means to fulfil our dreams of flying within a recreational setting," said Dr Joerg Weigl, one of two supervisors of the project, who is from the Design-Centric Programme at the NUS Faculty of Engineering.

Snowstorm's features and capabilities

The NUS team spent two semesters designing and building the flying machine, combining their skills and expertise across different fields of engineering such as computer engineering, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Aside from the construction of the physical frame, the students also designed and implemented the craft's electronic control and stabilisation system, a pilot safety system as well as an electric energy management and supply system where the three batteries that power the craft can function independently in the event any of the batteries malfunction.

The electric flying machine sports 24 motors, each driving a propeller of 76cm diameter with 2.2kW of power. Its hexagonal frame is made up of anodised aluminium beams, carbon fibre plates and tubes with Kevlar ropes. The pilot seat is positioned at the centre of the machine, its weight supported by six landing gear legs, the bottom of which is an inflated ball that adsorbs shock when landing. Three independent rechargeable lithium batteries sets provide a total power of 52.8kW.

To ensure pilot safety, the seat is installed with a five-point harness that secures the pilot to the centre of the machine. The flight control system allows the pilot to adjust thrust, pitch, roll and yaw of the craft. In addition, Snowstorm provides a variety of automated flight modes familiar to operators of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), including altitude hold, loiter and position modes. For safety, the team has also worked in a separate switch that can be controlled from the ground to end the flight and bring the machine to a landing, should the pilot lose control of the machine.

"Designing and building Snowstorm was a great learning opportunity for us. The toughest part of this engineering challenge was ensuring a good thrust to weight ratio to allow the craft to lift a person into the air. At every stage of our design, we constantly had to balance and consider trade-offs between the types of materials, their characteristics and weight. In some instances, we even 3D-printed parts, such as our landing gear mount, just so we can have a customised and optimal fit," said Mr Shawn Sim, a third year NUS Engineering student.

The team first tested their design on a smaller 1/6 scale prototype, before proceeding with the massive task of building the current prototype. Using fasteners and non-permanent connections for the beams, the NUS team also designed the flying machine such that it can be dismantled, transported and reassembled easily.

"Recent advances in motors and battery technology has made it possible for us to literally take to the skies," said Associate Professor Martin Henz of the University Scholars Programme and the School of Computing at NUS, who also supervised the project. "The NUS team will continue to fine-tune Snowstorm, working on mechanical safety measures, propeller and motor configurations, and control software and hardware to achieve the high levels of safety, simplicity and performance required for recreational use by the general public," he added. The NUS team hopes the improvements in the coming year will bring Snowstorm closer to commercialisation.

Noise can't hide weak signals from this new receiver

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Schematic of single-event noise discrimination using the spectral cloning receiver.

Credit: Photonics Systems Group at UC San Diego

Electrical engineers at the University of California, San Diego developed a receiver that can detect a weak, fast, randomly occurring signal. The study, published in the Dec. 11 issue of Science, lays the groundwork for a new class of highly sensitive communication receivers and scientific instruments that can extract faint, non-repetitive signals from noise. The advance has applications in secure communication, electronic warfare, signal intelligence, remote sensing, astronomy and spectroscopy.

The research is motivated by a long-standing need to capture random, singly-occurring phenomena in nature and in communications. An example of these includes the spontaneous decay of a molecule, an event that emits a single noisy signal and therefore eludes detection by conventional methods. Because a standard detector must repeat measurements of the event multiple times to confirm its existence, it prevents, in principle, the capture of a random, non-repetitive event. Another limitation is that the capture of a fast event requires an equally fast detector.

To overcome the limitations of conventional detection methods, UC San Diego researchers developed a spectral-cloning receiver that works by replicating the received noisy signal to generate multiple spectral (colored) copies, and then combines these copies to reveal the existence of the signal within the noise.

"With the new receiver, it is now possible, at least in principle, to capture an ephemeral, non-repeating signal and observe fast, sparsely occurring natural or artificial phenomena--that would otherwise be invisible to us--over a long period of time, using a slow detector," said Stojan Radic, an electrical engineering professor in the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and senior author of the study

In the Science paper, researchers report that the spectral-cloning receiver they developed "can potentially intercept communication signals that are presently considered secure." These signals are based on singly-occurring bursts, which disappear before another measurement can be taken to separate noise.

Radic also noted that the receiver could enable communication at a longer distance and with higher security. For example, it would be possible to bury the communication channel in noise and still detect it using the new receiver, while being well below the sensitivity threshold of conventional detectors.

The new receiver physics can be compared to a "temporal microscope": it can see a very fast, faint signal while observing over a much larger time interval. However, while an ordinary microscope cannot eliminate surrounding image noise, the new receiver can differentiate between the noise and the signal fields.

In their experiments, the team used a new class of tunable optical frequency combs--developed in Radic's Photonics Systems Group at UC San Diego--to simultaneously create multiple spectral clones of a fast pulse. Researchers combined these clones to extract the signal from the noise and were able to reconstruct its timing and shape. They found that a higher spectral clone count resulted in higher sensitivity of signal detection by the spectral-cloning receiver.

"We were surprised that this concept could be scaled up to a high number of spectral copies. We are now able to construct a receiver that operates on hundreds of freely tunable copies," said Radic. "This work is a result of long-standing research on tunable frequency combs at UC San Diego. The new class of combs are nearly noise-free and, in contrast to conventional frequency combs, can be freely tuned over a wide spectral range."

First puppies born by in vitro fertilization

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Credit: Cornell University

For the first time, a litter of puppies was born by in vitro fertilization, thanks to work by Cornell University researchers.

The breakthrough, described in a study to be published online Dec. 9 in the journal Public Library of Science ONE, opens the door for conserving endangered canid species, using gene-editing technologies to eradicate heritable diseases in dogs and for study of genetic diseases. Canines share more than 350 similar heritable disorders and traits with humans, almost twice the number as any other species.

Nineteen embryos were transferred to the host female dog, who gave birth to seven healthy puppies, two from a beagle mother and a cocker spaniel father, and five from two pairings of beagle fathers and mothers.

"Since the mid-1970s, people have been trying to do this in a dog and have been unsuccessful," said Alex Travis, associate professor of reproductive biology in the Baker Institute for Animal Health in Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.

Jennifer Nagashima, a graduate student in Travis' lab and the first to enroll in the Joint Graduate Training Program between the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, is the paper's first author.

For successful in vitro fertilization, researchers must fertilize a mature egg with a sperm in a lab, to produce an embryo. They must then return the embryo into a host female at the right time in her reproductive cycle.

The first challenge was to collect mature eggs from the female oviduct. The researchers first tried to use eggs that were in the same stage of cell maturation as other animals, but since dogs' reproductive cycles differ from other mammals, those eggs failed to fertilize. Through experimentation, Nagashima and colleagues found if they left the egg in the oviduct one more day, the eggs reached a stage where fertilization was greatly improved.

The second challenge was that the female tract prepares sperm for fertilization, requiring researchers to simulate those conditions in the lab. Nagashima and Skylar Sylveste, found that by adding magnesium to the cell culture, it properly prepared the sperm.

"We made those two changes, and now we achieve success in fertilization rates at 80 to 90 percent," Travis said.

The final challenge for the researchers was freezing the embryos. Travis and colleagues delivered Klondike, the first puppy born from a frozen embryo in the Western Hemisphere in 2013. Freezing the embryos allowed the researchers to insert them into the recipient's oviducts (called Fallopian tubes in humans) at the right time in her reproductive cycle, which occurs only once or twice a year.

The findings have wide implications for wildlife conservation because, Travis said, "We can freeze and bank sperm, and use it for artificial insemination. We can also freeze oocytes, but in the absence of in vitro fertilization, we couldn't use them. Now we can use this technique to conserve the genetics of endangered species."

In vitro fertilization allows conservationists to store semen and eggs and bring their genes back into the gene pool in captive populations. In addition to endangered species, this can also be used to preserve rare breeds of show and working dogs.

With new genome editing techniques, researchers may one day remove genetic diseases and traits in an embryo, ridding dogs of heritable diseases. While selecting for desired traits, inbreeding has also led to detrimental genetic baggage. Different breeds are predisposed to different diseases; Golden retrievers are likely to develop lymphoma, while Dalmatians carry a gene that predisposes them to blockage with urinary stones.

"With a combination of gene editing techniques and IVF, we can potentially prevent genetic disease before it starts," Travis said.

Finally, since dogs and humans share so many diseases, dogs now offer a "powerful tool for understanding the genetic basis of diseases," Travis said.

Co-authors include Nucharin Songsasen, a research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Baker Institute for Animal Health, Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and the Smithsonian Institution.

Have an apple-shaped body? You may be more susceptible to binge eating

This study marks the first investigation of the connections between fat distribution, body image disturbance and the development of disordered eating, say its authors.

Women with apple-shaped bodies -- those who store more of their fat in their trunk and abdominal regions -- may be at particular risk for the development of eating episodes during which they experience a sense of "loss of control," according to a new study from Drexel University. The study also found that women with greater fat stores in their midsections reported being less satisfied with their bodies, which may contribute to loss-of-control eating.

This study marks the first investigation of the connections between fat distribution, body image disturbance and the development of disordered eating.

"Eating disorders that are detected early are much more likely to be successfully treated. Although existing eating disorder risk models comprehensively address psychological factors, we know of very few biologically-based factors that help us predict who may be more likely to develop eating disorder behaviors," said lead author Laura Berner, PhD, who completed the research while pursuing a doctoral degree at Drexel.

"Our preliminary findings reveal that centralized fat distribution may be an important risk factor for the development of eating disturbance, specifically for loss-of-control eating," said Berner. "This suggests that targeting individuals who store more of their fat in the midsection and adapting psychological interventions to focus specifically on body fat distribution could be beneficial for preventing eating disorders."

The study, titled "Examination of Central Body Fat Deposition as a Risk Factor for Loss-of-Control Eating," was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Berner is now a postdoctoral research fellow at the Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research at UC San Diego Health. Michael R. Lowe, PhD, a professor in Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences, was a co-author, along with Danielle Arigo, PhD, who was a postdoctoral research fellow at Drexel and is now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Scranton; Laurel Mayer, MD, associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute,; and David B. Sarwer, PhD, professor of psychology in Psychiatry and Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania as well as director of clinical services at the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders.

Mounting evidence suggests that experiencing a sense of loss-of-control during eating -- feeling driven or compelled to keep eating or that stopping once one has started is difficult -- is the most significant element of binge-eating episodes regardless of how much food is consumed, according to the researchers.

"This sense of loss of control is experienced across a range of eating disorder diagnoses: bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and the binge-eating/purging subtype of anorexia nervosa," said Berner. "We wanted to see if a measurable biological characteristic could help predict who goes on to develop this feeling, as research shows that individuals who feel this sense of loss of control over eating but don't yet have an eating disorder are more likely to develop one."

Using a large dataset that followed female college freshman for two years, the researchers preliminarily investigated whether body fat distribution is linked to body dissatisfaction over time and increases risk for the development or worsening of loss-of-control eating.

The nearly 300 young adult women completed assessments at baseline, six months and 24 months, that looked at height, weight and total body fat percentage and where it's distributed. Participants, none of whom met the diagnostic criteria for eating disorders at the start of the study, were assessed for disordered eating behaviors through standardized clinical interviews in which experiences of sense of loss of control were self-reported.

In this sample, the researchers found that women with greater central fat stores, independent of total body mass and depression levels, were more likely to develop loss-of-control eating and demonstrated steadier increases in loss-of-control eating episode frequency over time. Women with a larger percentage of their body fat stored in the trunk region were also less satisfied with their bodies, regardless of their total weight or depression level.

The findings indicate that storage of body fat in trunk and abdominal regions, rather than elsewhere in the body, is more strongly predictive of loss-of-control eating development and worsening over time, and that larger percentages of fat stored in these central regions and body dissatisfaction may serve as maintenance or exacerbation for loss-of-control eating.

"Our results suggest that centralized fat deposition increased disordered eating risk above and beyond other known risk factors," said Berner. "The specificity of our findings to centralized fat deposition was also surprising. For example, a one-unit increase in the percentage of body fat stored in the abdominal region was associated with a 53 percent increase in the risk of developing loss-of-control eating over the next two years, whereas total percentage body fat did not predict loss-of-control eating development."

According to Berner, more research is needed to explain the mechanism behind these findings, though she speculates that there are a number of reasons why this might happen.

"It's possible that this kind of fat distribution is not only psychologically distressing, but biologically influential through, for example, alterations in hunger and satiety signaling," she said. "Fat cells release signals to the brain that influence how hungry or satiated we feel. Our study didn't include hormone assays, so we can't know for sure, but in theory it's possible that if a centralized distribution of fat alters the hunger and satiety messages it sends, it could make a person feel out of control while eating."

The findings may apply to other disordered eating behaviors beyond loss-of-control eating, but more research is needed. "Body fat distribution hasn't been studied in disorders characterized by binge-eating behaviors as much as it has in anorexia nervosa," said Berner. "The participants in our sample didn't develop eating disorder diagnoses within the two year period that we studied them, but this study suggests that future research should investigate whether individuals with greater central fat stores are more likely to develop bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder."

Blood sample new way of detecting cancer

With the use of a blood sample equivalent to one drop of blood, a new RNA test of blood platelets can be used to detect cancer.

A new RNA test of blood platelets can be used to detect, classify and pinpoint the location of cancer by analysing a sample equivalent to one drop of blood. Using this new method for blood-based RNA tests of blood platelets, researchers have been able to identify cancer with 96 per cent accuracy. This according to a study at Umeå University in Sweden recently published in the journalCancer Cell.

"Being able to detect cancer at an early stage is vital. We have studied how a whole new blood-based method of biopsy can be used to detect cancer, which in the future renders an invasive cell tissue sample unnecessary in diagnosing lung cancer, for instance. In the study, nearly all forms of cancer were identified, which proves that blood-based biopsies have an immense potential to improve early detection of cancer," according to Jonas Nilsson, cancer researcher at Umeå University and co-author of the article.

In the study, researchers from Umeå University, in collaborations with researchers from the Netherlands and the US, have investigated how a new method of blood-based RNA tests of the part of the blood called platelets could be used in detecting and classifying cancer.

The results show that blood platelets could constitute a complete and easily accessible blood-based source for sampling and hence be used in diagnosing cancer as well as in the choice of treatment method.

Blood samples from 283 individuals were studied of which 228 people had some form of cancer and 55 showed no evidence of cancer. By comparing the blood samples RNA profiles, researchers could identify the presence of cancer with an accuracy of 96 per cent among patients. Among the 39 patients in the study in which an early detection of cancer had been made, 100 per cent of the cases could be identified and classified.

In follow-up tests using the same method, researchers could identify the origin of tumours with a so far unsurpassed accuracy of 71 per cent in patients with diagnosed cancer in the lung, breast, pancreas, brain, liver, colon and rectum. The samples could also be sorted in subdivisions depending on molecular differences in the cancer form, which can be of great use in the choice of treatment method.

How low to go for blood pressure? Lower target could affect millions of Americans

While new medical guidelines for treating hypertension could be months to years away, this research finds that more than 16.8 million Americans, 7.6 percent of the population, could be recommended for intensive blood pressure management if guidelines incorporate a new, lower, SBP target based on SPRINT results.

A new study finds that at least 16.8 million Americans could potentially benefit from lowering their systolic blood pressure (SBP) to 120 mmHg, much lower than current guidelines of 140 or 150 mmHg. The collaborative investigation between the University of Utah, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Columbia University, will be published Nov. 9 online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).

The scientists calculated the potential impact of preliminary results from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) that will be presented in full at the American Heart Association meeting and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, also on Nov. 9. The initial analysis of SPRINT, reported in Sept., 2015, showed that using antihypertensive medications to reach a lower SBP target of 120 mmHg could greatly reduce risk for heart failure, heart attack, and death, compared to a target of 140 mmHg (SBP is the top number in a blood pressure reading). It's estimated that one in three U.S. adults have high blood pressure, or hypertension, a significant health concern.

"SPRINT could have broad implications," says lead author Adam Bress, Pharm.D., M.S., assistant professor of pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. "Millions of Americans whose blood pressure is under control according to current guidelines may be considered uncontrolled if new guidelines adopt the intensive target of less than 120 mmHg studied in SPRINT."

While new medical guidelines for treating hypertension could be months to years away, this research finds that more than 16.8 million Americans, 7.6 percent of the population, could be recommended for intensive blood pressure management if guidelines incorporate a new, lower, SBP target based on SPRINT results. The number represents Americans who meet the same criteria as SPRINT participants: they are age 50 or older, have an SBP between 130-180 mmHg, are at high risk for cardiovascular disease, and do not have diabetes or a history of stroke, among other inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The current study also reports that new guidelines may affect some segments of the population more than others. Compared to Caucasians, African Americans and Hispanics were less likely to meet SPRINT eligibility criteria (9 percent vs. 4.8 percent, 4.3 percent). The differences are largely due to the fact that these minority populations have a higher prevalence of diabetes and other health conditions that could preclude them from being SPRINT eligible. Men were also more likely to be eligible for SPRINT than women (8.8 percent vs. 6.5 percent), in part because unlike men, women tend not to show increased risk for cardiovascular disease until they are over 65.

However in practice, it's common for physicians to prescribe treatments to patients who may have not been eligible for a clinical trial that demonstrated the efficacy and safety of a particular treatment. For example, some physicians may deviate from SPRINT eligibility by aggressively treating the blood pressure of any adult over 50, even if they do not have a high risk of cardiovascular disease. "Physicians are going to need to decide how far outside the SPRINT inclusion criteria to go," says co-author Rachel Hess, M.D., M.S., also a professor of internal medicine and population health sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine. "It's going to be a tough decision."

The numbers of Americans meeting each sequential SPRINT eligibility requirement are:

• 219 million adults
• 95.1 million age 50 or older
• 37.3 million with elevated blood pressure (?130 mmHg)
• 26.4 million at high risk for cardiovascular disease
• 16.8 million with no diabetes, history of stroke, or other SPRINT exclusion criteria

Potential impacts of SPRINT results on the U.S. population were based on analyzing data from the 16,260 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2007 -- 2012 who met certain SPRINT inclusion and exclusion criteria. NHANES includes a representative cross-section of the American population, allowing for projection of these findings to the overall population. Most, but not all, SPRINT inclusion and exclusion criteria were accounted for in NHANES. For example information on subclinical cardiovascular disease and a history of medical non-adherence are not represented in the national survey.

New blood pressure guidelines will have to weight potential adverse effects that could overshadow its benefits, and whether increasing blood pressure medications over the course of multiple years is cost-effective. But the numbers obtained in this study offer a glimpse into the potentially wide ranging impact of changing blood pressure guidelines.

"Given that millions of U.S. adults meet SPRINT eligibility criteria, the implementation of SPRINT recommendations could have a profound impact on how blood pressure is treated in this country," says senior author Paul Muntner, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama. "Even more important, is its potential for greatly reducing the incidence of cardiovascular disease."

Next-gen pacemakers may be powered by unlikely source: The heart

Human heart (stock image). Researchers are developing technology to make these devices battery-free. The advancement is based upon a piezoelectric system that converts vibrational energy -- created inside the chest by each heartbeat -- into electricity to power the pacemaker.

The implantable pacemaker, a medical marvel that has extended millions of lives since its invention nearly 60 years ago, is getting a 21st century makeover. First came a wireless version; these pacemakers, which are AAA battery-sized and placed inside the heart via a catheter through the leg, are being tested in humans in the United States, Canada and Australia.

Now, researchers are developing technology to make these devices battery-free. The advancement is based upon a piezoelectric system that converts vibrational energy -- created inside the chest by each heartbeat -- into electricity to power the pacemaker. A video explaining the technology is here:http://bit.ly/1KFfe0V.

"Essentially, we're creating technology that will allow pacemakers to be powered by the very heart that they are regulating," says M. Amin Karami, PhD, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who is leading the research. The technology may eliminate the medical risks, costs and inconvenience of having a battery replacement every five to 12 years for millions of people worldwide. From the beginning The development of pacemakers dates back nearly a century. At the beginning, most efforts focused on devices that patients would carry outside their body. Surgeons first successfully implanted a pacemaker in a human in 1960 in Buffalo, New York. The device, invented by UB alumnus Wilson Greatbatch, enabled the patient to survive another 18 months. (Note: A patient in Sweden received an implantable pacemaker in 1958, but the device failed after three hours.)

While there have been advancements since 1960 -- the devices are smaller, the batteries last longer, there are even "smart" pacemakers that are linked to computers -- the basic design from Greatbatch is the same. About the size of a pocket watch, pacemakers are implanted under the skin through an incision in the chest. Wires, also called leads, connect the device to the heart and deliver electrical signals that regulate the heart's activity.

The new wireless option does not require leads because it rests inside the heart. This removes a potential point of failure, but the device still relies on a battery that must be replaced as often as the batteries that conventional pacemakers use. A state of constant motion

The idea of heart-powered pacemakers came to Karami after doing PhD work on piezoelectric applications for unmanned aerial vehicles and bridges. He wanted to apply that knowledge to the human body. The heart was an obvious choice because of its relative strength and constant motion. "To see the heart in motion -- even an animation -- is to be awestruck," says Karami. "It moves significantly. In turn, that movement creates energy that we're just now figuring out how to harvest." Karami is not the first person with the idea. He found designs from the 1960s attempting the same. But they lacked the scientific knowledge and modern technology available today.

He initially designed a flat piezoelectric structure for a conventional pacemaker. A prototype generated enough power to keep the pacemaker running at a range of 7 to 700 beats per minute. With the development of wireless pacemakers, however, he has revamped the design to accommodate the smaller, tube-shaped device. Karami, who is already talking to device-makers, is building the new prototype and expects to have animal tests done within two years. From there, it should be ready for human trials and, eventually, approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.