Tech Briefs Magazine - August 2024 - 20

Instead of powering the heart pump via
a thick cable that is much stiffer than huThe
challenge here is that the craters
man skin, they use several thin and flexible
wires with a rough, irregular surface.
Kourouklis and his team compare their
approach with the way in which human
hair breaks through the skin without
causing infections: " More flexible wires
whose surface is full of microscopic craters
help the skin heal, " Kourouklis said.
To create craters on the cables' surface,
a team of engineers led by Kourouklis
and Mazza have developed a new
process that allows the creation of very
small, irregular patterns on surfaces that
are not flat - something that had not
been possible before.
This method, which is currently patented
at ETH Zurich, entails coating the flexible
cables with a thin silicone layer and
cooling them to minus 20 °C. The surface
of the cables thus becomes malleable. They
are then put into a condensation chamber,
Andreas Kourouklis has received a Pioneer Fellowship
from ETH Zurich to develop a new cable
system for heart pumps. (Image: Nici Lebküchner
/ ETH Zurich)
where small droplets of water are pressed
into the liquid layer of silicone, creating microscopic
craters. " We can control the position
of the craters on the cables by adjusting
the humidity and temperature in the
condensation chamber, " Kourouklis said.
can't be too large or too small: if they're too
large, bacteria may settle in them and the
risk of infection increases; if they're too
small, the skin does not adhere to them
and grows inward - in which case the risk
of infection also increases. A classic optimization
problem overcome by means of
computational and experimental methods
in tissue biomechanics and biomaterials.
Kourouklis and his colleagues carried
out initial tests on skin cell cultures before
implanting both the old and thick cables
and their new cable system in a sheep. The
results make the ETH Zurich researcher
optimistic: while the thick cables with a flat
surface caused severe inflammation, the
thin, flexible cables only showed mild inflammatory
reactions. No sheep suffered
permanent injuries during the tests.
For more information, contact Peter
Rueegg at peter.rueegg@hk.ethz.ch;
446-324-532.
AI-Based Test for Parkinson's Disease Severity Shows
Promising Results
The AI tool can help people with Parkinson's disease remotely assess the severity of their
symptoms within minutes.
University of Rochester, NY
A
n artificial intelligence (AI) tool
developed by researchers at the
University of Rochester can help people
with Parkinson's disease remotely assess
the severity of their symptoms within
minutes. A study in npj Digital Medicine
describes the new tool, which has users
tap their fingers 10 times in front of a
webcam to assess motor performance on
a scale of 0-4.
Doctors often have patients perform
simple motor tasks to assess movement
disorders and rate the severity using
guidelines such as the Movement Disorder
Society Unified Parkinson's Disease
Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS). The AI modINDEX_FINGER_TIP
THUMB_TIP
X
WRIST
All
the extracted key points are displayed as red dots. The three key-points WRIST, THUMB_TIP,
and INDEX_FINGER_TIP were used to compute the finger-tapping angle X. (Image: University of
Rochester/Saiful et. al.)
20
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el provides a rapid assessment using the
MDS-UPDRS guidelines, automatically
generating computational metrics such
as speed, amplitude, frequency, and period
that are interpretable, standardized,
repeatable, and consistent with medical
guidebooks. It uses those attributes to classify
the severity of tremors.
The finger-tapping task was performed
by 250 global participants with Parkinson's
disease, and the AI system's ratings were
compared with those by three neurologists
and three primary care physicians. While
expert neurologists performed slightly
better than the AI model, the AI model
outperformed the primary care physicians
with UPDRS certification.
The AI-based Parkinson's disease severity
test generates computational metrics such
as speed, amplitude, frequency, and period,
and uses those attributes to classify the
severity of tremors.
" These findings could have huge implications
for patients who have difficulty
gaining access to neurologists, getting
appointments, and traveling to the hospital, "
said Associate Professor Ehsan Hoque.
" It's an example of how AI is being
Tech Briefs, August 2024

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Tech Briefs Magazine - August 2024

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