Category Archives: Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

I got the AHA Pre-Doctoral Fellowship!

The AHA pre-doctoral fellowship I applied for in early January (remember?) has been approved for funding! I include a copy of the project lay summary, which the AHA will also post on its site, below:

A heart attack can only be stopped by application of a strong electric field (i.e. electrical defibrillation). While this treatment is currently used, and works, it also requires very strong shocks to ensure success. This is both painful and damaging to the body.

The way such shocks work is not entirely understood. Previous research has improved understanding of the mechanism, which has led to improvements in medical devices and quality of life. However, defibrillation shocks from implantable devices are still so strong that they cause people to lose consciousness. This study aims to further the understanding of electrical defibrillation in order to reduce the energy needed for defibrillation.

When a defibrillation shock is applied, there is sometimes a period when there is no activity in the heart, followed by more fibrillation (which means that defibrillation failed). The heart wall has different properties within its thickness depending on the distance to the heart’s surface. One goal of this study is to examine how those differences contribute to the period of no activity and the following continuation of the heart attack. We will use a computational model of the heart to simulate these differences in the wall and examine in detail how they affect defibrillation.

The inner wall of the heart is composed of a web of tissue, which is thought to interact with shocks and make defibrillation more difficult. In order to determine whether these effects are relevant to defibrillation, we will make a very detailed computer model of the inner wall of the heart, and simulate the application of a defibrillation shock. We will then be able to look closely at what happens on the inner wall of the heart during such a shock.

The long-term significance of this work is that it furthers understanding of the very complex phenomenon known as a heart attack, or fibrillation, and the methods by which heart attacks are treated. The current treatment is painful and incapacitating. The more that is understood about how defibrillation shocks work, the more those shocks can be improved and hopefully reduced in strength, leading to an improvement in quality-of-life for people susceptible to heart attacks.

Friday odds and ends

  • I took the oral portion of my qualifying exam yesterday. I think I passed, but I won’t know until Monday.
  • I’m playing “phone hookey” today — I forgot my cell phone at home.
  • In the Friday round of “Does our building have water pressure today?”, we win — there’s water pressure. This means we can do fun things like using the restrooms on the fourth floor rather than the first, and using the sink in lab, for instance, to wash dishes.

Almost time to write

I have four papers and several abstracts left to read. I’m losing my motivation to read because I feel like I can already answer the questions posed. However, I acquired these papers because they are relevant, and so they must be read.

Soon, the writing will begin.

Also, I’m antsy because our new server came in. We need it badly, and I want to set it up, but I have to do a bunch of other stuff, including the qualifier, first.

Grar.

Round 1 of Reading Complete

I’ve read the latest and greatest papers on heart resynchronization therapy. Now it’s time to read their interesting references, many of which (thankfully!) overlap. In particular, there have been a few major studies in the last few years, and for a complete picture of the existing HRT knowledge, I must read these studies.

By the way, Guidant has funded the majority of the HRT studies I’ve read. I wonder if they’re doing more research on it than anyone else, or if they’re just hiring more academics to do it rather than doing studies in-house. Hmm.

ADDENDUM 2006-05-25 @ 10:17 CDT: I have 168 references to check out. Not all of them are unique, and not all of them are likely to be interesting enough to look up (by the title), but they were all referenced in an interesting way in the papers I’ve already read.

ADDENDUM 2006-05-25 @ 13:33 CDT: After pruning, 72 articles to acquire and read. On my mark, get set, go!.