Its the power of... MUSIC!

I always knew that there was power in music, but this blows my mind!

A new type of miniature medical sensor that is implanted in the body can be powered by a driving bass rhythm. The sensor would be used to measure pressure changes in parts of the body, helping those with aneurisms or incontinence due to paralysis. 


The way that it works is thus: There is a tiny vibrating cantilever at the heart of the sensor. A cantilever is a thin beam attached at one end, kind of like a diving board. Music within a certain range, between 200 and 500 hertz has been found to be able to cause this little lever to vibrate. These vibrations generate electricity which can store a charge in a capacitor.

Babak Ziai (what a name, right?!), a professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering said, ‘The music reaches the correct frequency only at certain times, for example, when there is a strong bass component.’

What’s really cool is that the acoustic energy can bass through body tissue. Thus if the sensor is implanted in the body, it can be recharged.

It’s a clever little device such that when the frequency falls outside of the proper range, the cantilever stops vibrating, automatically sending the electrical charge to the sensor, which then takes a pressure reading. This data is then transmitted as radio signals. Because frequencies continually change in songs, the sensor can be switch between storing charge and transmitting data.

"You would only need to do this for a couple of minutes every hour or so to monitor either blood pressure or pressure of urine in the bladder," Ziaie said. "It doesn't take long to do the measurement."

It is possible to play tones within the frequency range instead of music, but that would be boring. The researchers experimented with a few types of music: rap, blues, jazz and rock. Rap turned out to be the best as it contains a lot of bass! 

To reiterate, this sensor can measure pressure in the urinary bladder on in the blood vessel damaged by an aneurysm. When pressure in the bladder rises, the spinal cord can be stimulated to control urine flow. It can also be used as a diagnostic tool instead of a painful catheter. 

These exciting findings will be presented in the upcoming IEEE MEMS conference in a few days in Paris, and the patent is pending.