Grain-sized pacemaker on the horizon

These non-wired pacemakers are connected to a base station which keep a tab on the heart’s functioning

Anew design for a wireless pacemaker would place a network of chips the size of rice grains in various places inside the heart. The chips would communicate with a base station located under a patient’s skin and charge via radio frequency.

When the base station sensed a problem with the heart’s rhythm, it would automatically trigger the embedded chips to release a jolt of energy timed to re-establish the heart’s normal rhythm.

Different forms of wireless and leadless pacemakers have come on the market to replace the status quo, a pulse generator located in a patient’s chest and connected to the heart via one to three wired stimulus and sensing leads.

Aydin Babakhani and colleagues at the Texas Medical Center introduced a concept for a more advanced wireless pacemaker last year that could be embedded in the heart and charged via radio frequency energy harvesting.

The aim of the new device, which a team of electrical and computer engineering seniors at Rice University developed, is to build on that technology by establishing an entire network inside the heart. The concept would use millimeter-scale chips permanently embedded within the heart.

“The current (commercial) leadless solution is a bulletsized pacemaker with a battery that is installed inside the heart. It is effective only in pacing a single chamber of the heart,” says team member Yoseph Maguire.

The demo system includes a 3D printed heart with light traces triggered by programmed anomalies and sensor-simulator chips that detect problems and send data to the base station.