Starfish-shaped heart monitors use AI to deliver accurate results

Researchers have taken inspiration from starfish to design a new wearable device that delivers accurate real-time heart monitoring. It was built to record electrocardiogram, seismocardiogram and gyrocardiogram signals at once, even during intense physical activities.

Specialists from the United States, China and Saudi Arabia collaborated on the new-look device, sharing their initial findings in Science Advances.[1]

“While state-of-the-art soft bioelectronics boast high flexibility and advanced integration of various components, their typical design—incorporating sensing elements, data acquisition modules, and conductive traces onto a single substrate—poses limitations,” wrote lead author Sicheng Chen, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Missouri (Mizzou), and colleagues. “This monolithic configuration constrains their ability to effectively mitigate mechanical interference, thereby compromising the high-fidelity capture of biosignals during dynamic bodily movements and restricting their practical applications in real-life scenarios. Drawing inspiration from starfish, we propose that a five-arm, pentaradial device configuration is optimal for minimizing mechanical interference, which can serve as the foundation for enabling high-fidelity recording of physiological signals.”

Chen et al. developed the starfish-like heart monitor using advanced artificial intelligence algorithms that can filter out movement-related interference and track heart data to determine if a person is showing any signs of complications. It uses Bluetooth technology to send signals directly to clinicians and can be paired with a smartphone app.