A stretchy computer chip with brain-like AI might revolutionise wearable health tech

Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have created a chip that processes information by mimicking the human brain. The flexible and stretchable computing chip might change how health data is processed.

The study was published August 4, 2022 in the journal Matter. 

Wearable sensor technologies with the chip will be able to sample human sweat, which is rich in physiological information. This could enable non-invasive health monitoring and a wide range of personalised diagnostic applications.

“We’ve bridged wearable technology with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create a powerful device, which can analyse health data right on our bodies,” said Sihong Wang, one of the study’s authors. Wang is a materials scientist and assistant professor of molecular engineering.

Read more: Mobile technology to be used to improve maternal and child health in Africa

Today, getting an in-depth profile about your health requires visiting a hospital or clinic. In the future, Wang said, people’s health could be tracked continuously by wearable electronics that can detect diseases even before symptoms appear.

Unobtrusive and wearable computing devices are one step toward making this vision a reality.

Previously reported sweat-based and other non-invasive biosensors can only monitor a single analyte at a time, said the researchers. These techs either lacked on-site signal processing circuitry or sensor calibration mechanisms for accurate physiological analysis.

The research team wanted to design a chip that could collect data from multiple biosensors and draw conclusions about a person’s health using cutting-edge machine learning approaches. They also wanted it to be wearable on the body and integrate seamlessly with the skin.

The future of healthcare that Wang and many others envision includes wearable biosensors to track complex health indicators, including levels of oxygen, sugar, metabolites and immune molecules in people’s blood.

One of the keys to making these sensors feasible is their ability to conform to the skin. “There’s always a gap with a smartwatch,” said Wang. “We wanted something that can achieve intimate contact and accommodate skin movement.”

As such skin-like wearable biosensors emerge and collect more information in real-time, the analysis becomes exponentially more complex.

Read more: Even during the coronavirus pandemic, the role of public health workers is unrecognised

Wang and his colleagues turned to polymers, which can be used to build semiconductors and electrochemical transistors but also have the ability to stretch and bend. They assembled polymers into a device that allowed the AI-based analysis of health data.

However, the chip — called an electrochemical neuromorphic transistor — does not work like a typical computer. The electrochemical neuromorphic transistor functions more like a human brain, able to store and analyse data in an integrated way.

“If you can get real-time information on blood pressure, for instance, this device could very intelligently make decisions about when to adjust the patient’s blood pressure medication levels,” said Wang.

Some implantable insulin pumps already use that kind of automatic feedback loop, the researcher added. The team is planning new iterations of the device to expand the type of devices it can integrate and the types of machine learning algorithms it uses.

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