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"Electronic skin" will be able to monitor body functions online
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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You can monitor your heart, brain and muscles without bulky electrodes and power systems. “Electronic skin” is the name of a new device that will be able to monitor body functions online.
“Portable measuring devices attached to the skin surface have been the focus of scientists and engineers for more than eighty years,” write researchers from research centers in the United States and China. “In 1929, the first portable device appeared that recorded an encephalogram using electrodes attached to the skin.”
After the first encephalograph, many technologies, including space ones, have appeared that allow vital functions to be monitored online.
For example, to detect a section of the heart with arrhythmia, doctors use a portable electrode system that does not miss a single section of the blood pump. The fact is that even a sick heart is not always acting up. Therefore, in order to find and neutralize the section that throws the entire organ out of rhythm, doctors need to monitor the patient's heart for several hours, days, or even months.
“The concept and design of such devices are very outdated,” continue the researchers, who have developed a completely new packaging for the electrodes and measuring system. “They are attached to the skin using adhesive tapes or patches, contain bulky power supplies and communication components. Moreover, many patients develop allergic reactions in response to the glue or gels used to attach the electrodes to the skin.”
Scientists led by John Rogers from the University of Illinois packed an electronic measuring system not in a plastic box, but in a laminate. The result is an elastic thin module that can be bent without damaging the system itself. Such a system is “glued” to the skin by Van der Waals forces – the patient does not feel anything unpleasant or uncomfortable, and there are no reasons for the development of allergies. The scientists replaced the usual batteries and wired systems with solar power elements. The result of such transformations is a transparent sparkling sticker that bends in any direction.
The authors have already tested the high-tech tattoo sticker. The results are inspiring – the device works for 24 hours or more, being placed on the cheek, neck, crown and chin. The biologists also compared the readings of the new device and conventional systems used to measure the electrical activity of muscle fibers. In experiments with the heart and leg muscles, the readings of the new system were no different from those of well-tested bulky electrodes.
"We think that such a system can replace devices used in clinical practice to diagnose pathologies of the brain, heart and other organs," the authors of the invention conclude. An article describing it was published today in Science.