Symbiotic cardiac pacemaker

Han Ouyang,Yang Zou,Qiang Zheng,Zhou Li,Hao Zhang,Xuecheng Qu,Zhong Lin Wang,Hu Li,Yubo Fan,Zhuo Liu,Bojing Shi,Feng Xie,Ning Li,Ye Ma,Zhe Li

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09851-1

Abstract

Self-powered implantable medical electronic devices that harvest biomechanical energy from cardiac motion, respiratory movement and blood flow are part of a paradigm shift that is on the horizon. Here, we demonstrate a fully implanted symbiotic pacemaker based on an implantable triboelectric nanogenerator, which achieves energy harvesting and storage as well as cardiac pacing on a large-animal scale. The symbiotic pacemaker successfully corrects sinus arrhythmia and prevents deterioration. The open circuit voltage of an implantable triboelectric nanogenerator reaches up to 65.2 V. The energy harvested from each cardiac motion cycle is 0.495 μJ, which is higher than the required endocardial pacing threshold energy (0.377 μJ). Implantable triboelectric nanogenerators for implantable medical devices offer advantages of excellent output performance, high power density, and good durability, and are expected to find application in fields of treatment and diagnosis as in vivo symbiotic bioelectronics.

Highlights

Self-powered implantable medical electronic devices that harvest biomechanical energy from cardiac motion, respiratory movement and blood flow are part of a paradigm shift that is on the horizon
Self-powered implantable medical electronic devices (IMEDs) harvesting biomechanical energy from cardiac motion[22,23,24], respiratory movement, and blood flow is part of a paradigm shift that is on the horizon[25]
Inspired by the biological symbiosis phenomenon that involves interaction between different organisms living in close physical association, such as nitrogen-fixing bacteria with leguminous plants, we demonstrate an implanted symbiotic pacemaker (SPM) based on an implantable triboelectric nanogenerator, which successfully achieves cardiac pacing and sinus arrhythmia correction on a large animal model

Summary

Introduction

Self-powered implantable medical electronic devices that harvest biomechanical energy from cardiac motion, respiratory movement and blood flow are part of a paradigm shift that is on the horizon. Various energy harvesters have been demonstrated in both providing complementary power to prolong the battery lifetime of IMEDs and providing independent power supplies[9,10,11] These devices can harvest energy from heart beating[12,13,14], muscle stretching[15,16,17], glucose oxidation[18], and endocochlear potential[19] by exploiting piezo/triboelectric[20,21], electromagnetic[13], thermoelectric, and electrochemical effects. Inspired by the biological symbiosis phenomenon that involves interaction between different organisms living in close physical association, such as nitrogen-fixing bacteria with leguminous plants, we demonstrate an implanted symbiotic pacemaker (SPM) based on an implantable triboelectric nanogenerator (iTENG), which successfully achieves cardiac pacing and sinus arrhythmia correction on a large animal model. Both energy source and stimulus target of the SPM are the heart

Methods

Results

Conclusion