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Temporary cardiac pacemakers used in periods of need during surgical recovery involve percutaneous leads and externalized hardware that carry risks of infection, constrain patient mobility and may damage the heart during lead removal. Here we report a leadless, battery-free, fully implantable cardiac pacemaker for postoperative control of cardiac rate and rhythm that undergoes complete dissolution and clearance by natural biological processes after a defined operating timeframe. We show that these devices provide effective pacing of hearts of various sizes in mouse, rat, rabbit, canine and human cardiac models, with tailored geometries and operation timescales, powered by wireless energy transfer. This approach overcomes key disadvantages of traditional temporary pacing devices and may serve as the basis for the next generation of postoperative temporary pacing technology. A biodegradable pacemaker without external leads improves the safety of temporary cardiac pacing.

Electrooculography (EOG) is a method to record the electrical potential between the cornea and the retina of human eyes. Despite many applications of EOG in both research and medical diagnosis for many decades, state-of-the-art EOG sensors are still bulky, stiff, and uncomfortable to wear. Since EOG has to be measured around the eye, a prominent area for appearance with delicate skin, mechanically and optically imperceptible EOG sensors are highly desirable. Here, we report an imperceptible EOG sensor system based on noninvasive graphene electronic tattoos (GET), which are ultrathin, ultrasoft, transparent, and breathable. The GET EOG sensors can be easily laminated around the eyes without using any adhesives and they impose no constraint on blinking or facial expressions. High-precision EOG with an angular resolution of 4° of eye movement can be recorded by the GET EOG and eye movement can be accurately interpreted. Imperceptible GET EOG sensors have been successfully applied for human–robot interface (HRI). To demonstrate the functionality of GET EOG sensors for HRI, we connected GET EOG sensors to a wireless transmitter attached to the collar such that we can use eyeball movements to wirelessly control a quadcopter in real time. Sensors: graphene electronic tattoos enable electrooculography Non-invasive graphene-based sensors can be laminated around the eyes to perform electrooculography and can be used as human–robot interfaces. A team led by Shideh Kabiri Ameri and supervised by Nanshu Lu and Deji Akinwande at University of Texas at Austin devised graphene electronic tattoos with 350 nm thickness, 85% optical transparency, and up to 50% stretchability, which can be seamlessly applied onto human skin without using any adhesives. These conformal sensors are capable of detecting eye movement with a resolution of about 4 degrees, and can thus be used for electrooculographic purposes. Connecting them to a commercially available board capable of data acquisition and wireless communication allows demonstrating real-time control of a wireless quadcopter through eye movements. This versatile platform can be extended to other two-dimensional materials for advances multimodal sensing.

Seismocardiography (SCG) is a measure of chest vibration associated with heartbeats. While skin soft electronic tattoos (e‐tattoos) have been widely reported for electrocardiogram (ECG) sensing, wearable SCG sensors are still based on either rigid accelerometers or non‐stretchable piezoelectric membranes. This work reports an ultrathin and stretchable SCG sensing e‐tattoo based on the filamentary serpentine mesh of 28‐µm‐thick piezoelectric polymer, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). 3D digital image correlation (DIC) is used to map chest vibration to identify the best location to mount the e‐tattoo and to investigate the effects of substrate stiffness. As piezoelectric sensors easily suffer from motion artifacts, motion artifacts are effectively reduced by performing subtraction between a pair of identical SCG tattoos placed adjacent to each other. Integrating the soft SCG sensor with a pair of soft gold electrodes on a single e‐tattoo platform forms a soft electro‐mechano‐acoustic cardiovascular (EMAC) sensing tattoo, which can perform synchronous ECG and SCG measurements and extract various cardiac time intervals including systolic time interval (STI). Using the EMAC tattoo, strong correlations between STI and the systolic/diastolic blood pressures, are found, which may provide a simple way to estimate blood pressure continuously and noninvasively using one chest‐mounted e‐tattoo. A hair thin, skin soft, and highly stretchable e‐tattoo is created for high fidelity electro‐mechanoacoustic cardiovascular monitoring, made of Au electrodes and polyvinylidene fluoride vibration sensors. Such synchronous measurement affords the extraction of many characteristic cardiac time intervals among which the systolic time interval is found to have a strong negative correlation with blood pressure.

Capabilities in continuous monitoring of key physiological parameters of disease have never been more important than in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Soft, skin-mounted electronics that incorporate high-bandwidth, miniaturized motion sensors enable digital, wireless measurements of mechanoacoustic (MA) signatures of both core vital signs (heart rate, respiratory rate, and temperature) and underexplored biomarkers (coughing count) with high fidelity and immunity to ambient noises. This paper summarizes an effort that integrates such MA sensors with a cloud data infrastructure and a set of analytics approaches based on digital filtering and convolutional neural networks for monitoring of COVID-19 infections in sick and healthy individuals in the hospital and the home. Unique features are in quantitative measurements of coughing and other vocal events, as indicators of both disease and infectiousness. Systematic imaging studies demonstrate correlations between the time and intensity of coughing, speaking, and laughing and the total droplet production, as an approximate indicator of the probability for disease spread. The sensors, deployed on COVID-19 patients along with healthy controls in both inpatient and home settings, record coughing frequency and intensity continuously, along with a collection of other biometrics. The results indicate a decaying trend of coughing frequency and intensity through the course of disease recovery, but with wide variations across patient populations. The methodology creates opportunities to study patterns in biometrics across individuals and among different demographic groups.

Soft, wireless physiological sensors that gently adhere to the skin are capable of continuous clinical-grade health monitoring in hospital and/or home settings, of particular value to critically ill infants and other vulnerable patients, but they present risks for injury upon thermal failure. This paper introduces an active materials approach that automatically minimizes such risks, to complement traditional schemes that rely on integrated sensors and electronic control circuits. The strategy exploits thin, flexible bladders that contain small volumes of liquid with boiling points a few degrees above body temperature. When the heat exceeds the safe range, vaporization rapidly forms highly effective, thermally insulating structures and delaminates the device from the skin, thereby eliminating any danger to the skin. Experimental and computational thermomechanical studies and demonstrations in a skin-interfaced mechano-acoustic sensor illustrate the effectiveness of this simple thermal safety system and suggest its applicability to nearly any class of skin-integrated device technology. Minimizing patient risk to thermal failure in wearable electronics typically requires complex circuit control, sensors, or passive materials. Here, Yoo et al. present an active materials system with a self-inflating bladder that delaminates upon excessive heat, mitigating the risk of thermal injury.

The increasing demand for motion tracking systems has been accelerated by advancements in virtual reality (VR) and motion reconstruction technologies. Combined with emerging innovations in the Internet of Things (IoT), these systems have unlocked transformative applications, from immersive user experiences to personalized healthcare solutions. However, conventional motion tracking systems often fall short of delivering sophisticated tracking and feedback capabilities, while systems designed for detailed motion analysis are typically costly and limited to controlled environments. This study introduces a cost-effective motion tracking system that integrates full-body motion analysis with real-time, bidirectional haptic feedback. Utilizing flexible, patch-type epidermal haptic devices alongside a remote machine‑learning framework, the system captures full‑body motion and delivers personalized, time‑synchronized feedback. Its closed‑loop design lays the groundwork for real‑time bidirectional haptic cues that accommodate user responsiveness and engagement. Motion tracking systems for virtual reality are challenged in tracking and feedback capabilities. Here, the authors report a wearable sensor-haptic network capturing full-body motion and delivering real-time bidirectional feedback, while deep learning integration enables low-latency, accurate classification.

Precise, quantitative measurements of the hydration status of skin can yield important insights into dermatological health and skin structure and function, with additional relevance to essential processes of thermoregulation and other features of basic physiology. Existing tools for determining skin water content exploit surrogate electrical assessments performed with bulky, rigid, and expensive instruments that are difficult to use in a repeatable manner. Recent alternatives exploit thermal measurements using soft wireless devices that adhere gently and noninvasively to the surface of the skin, but with limited operating range (∼1 cm) and high sensitivity to subtle environmental fluctuations. This paper introduces a set of ideas and technologies that overcome these drawbacks to enable high-speed, robust, long-range automated measurements of thermal transport properties via a miniaturized, multisensor module controlled by a long-range (∼10 m) Bluetooth Low Energy system on a chip, with a graphical user interface to standard smartphones. Soft contact to the surface of the skin, with almost zero user burden, yields recordings that can be quantitatively connected to hydration levels of both the epidermis and dermis, using computational modeling techniques, with high levels of repeatability and insensitivity to ambient fluctuations in temperature. Systematic studies of polymers in layered configurations similar to those of human skin, of porcine skin with known levels of hydration, and of human subjects with benchmarks against clinical devices validate the measurement approach and associated sensor hardware. The results support capabilities in characterizing skin barrier function, assessing severity of skin diseases, and evaluating cosmetic and medication efficacy, for use in the clinic or in the home.

Swallowing is a complex neuromuscular activity regulated by the autonomic nervous system. Millions of adults suffer from dysphagia (impaired or difficulty swallowing), including patients with neurological disorders, head and neck cancer, gastrointestinal diseases, and respiratory disorders. Therapeutic treatments for dysphagia include interventions by speech-language pathologists designed to improve the physiology of the swallowing mechanism by training patients to initiate swallows with sufficient frequency and during the expiratory phase of the breathing cycle. These therapeutic treatments require bulky, expensive equipment to synchronously record swallows and respirations, confined to use in clinical settings. This paper introduces a wireless, wearable technology that enables continuous, mechanoacoustic tracking of respiratory activities and swallows through movements and vibratory processes monitored at the skin surface. Validation studies in healthy adults ( n  = 67) and patients with dysphagia ( n  = 4) establish measurement equivalency to existing clinical standard equipment. Additional studies using a differential mode of operation reveal similar performance even during routine daily activities and vigorous exercise. A graphical user interface with real-time data analytics and a separate, optional wireless module support both visual and haptic forms of feedback to facilitate the treatment of patients with dysphagia.

Skin-interfaced electronics, on the other hand, are fully integrated into flexible and thin substrates, enabling comfortable and unrestricted movement along with an improved signal-to-noise ratio. Soft materials, such as silicone elastomers and hydrogels, provide a comfortable interface between the sensor and the skin, ensuring user comfort and device adhesion. Besides comfort and wearability, skin-interfaced electronics can offer high sensitivity and precision through signal processing, particularly in the quantitative assessment of public health applications. Subsequently, using the predicted ECG and measured SCG, it becomes possible to estimate blood pressure. [...]using only the SCG sensor, it is possible to estimate ECG through an AI model, followed by blood pressure estimation based on the ECG and SCG signals relationship.

ObjectivesInappropriately treated pain can have deleterious outcomes in infants. Current tools rely on intermittent, subjective observation requiring specialised paediatric skills. This study aimed to diagnose infant pain through continuous monitoring with wireless sensors using Neonatal Pain and Agitation Sedation Scale (NPASS)-derived Clinical Sensor Pain Scale (CSPS) and Automated SPS (ASPS).MethodsClinically stable neonatal intensive care unit infants undergoing phlebotomy were recorded with wireless sensors and video, capturing vital signs, extremity movement and vocalisations. Clinicians and non-clinicians scored the sensor data with CSPS and videos with NPASS; ASPS was applied to the sensor data. Median scores were compared, inter-rater reliability assessed with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and cross-scale comparisons performed using Wilcoxon signed-rank and Kruskal-Wallis tests.ResultsCSPS and ASPS closely aligned with NPASS scores, supporting their validity for continuous infant pain assessment. In 32 infants, the median CSPS score was 3 (IQR 2, 5), with excellent reliability (ICC, 95% CI 92 to 97), high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α=0.99) and 95% absolute agreement, comparable to NPASS (p=0.95). Clinician and non-clinician scores were more consistent using CSPS than NPASS. ASPS also performed well, with a median score of 3 (IQR 1, 5), yielding results similar to CSPS (p=0.94) and NPASS (p=0.56).ConclusionsWireless biosensors enabled objective monitoring of infant pain. CSPS and ASPS showed validity and reliability for diagnosing acute procedural pain, and feasibility for clinical use. Findings support the development of automated, real-time tools to reduce subjectivity and improve infant pain management, with the potential to advance treatment models and outcomes.