Updates

A researcher from the University of Glasgow has received funding to develop new wearable technology capable of measuring the progress of neuromuscular diseases. Professor Hadi Heidari has been awarded £1.8 million from the Engineering and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to develop a new wearable sensor system. It will provide less invasive, more accurate feedback on electrical activity inside the muscles of patients living with conditions like muscular dystrophy, Parkinson's disease and motor neurone disease. The project, called Super-Resolution non-invasive muscle measurements with miniaturised magnetic sensors, will develop a needle-free method of taking ultra-precise measurements of muscle activity. It will take the form of a wearable device similar to a smart watch that can measure patients' muscle activity using magnetomyography, or MMG.

MMG monitors the tiny magnetic fields created by muscles when contract or relax. Working with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh, Prof Heidari and his team at the University of Glasgow's Microelectronics Lab will develop a new MMG sensor based on cutting-edge sensing technology and a new microchip which will use artificial intelligence to pick MMG signals out of background noise. After the first 2 years of research to validate the technology, it will be field-tested over the following 3 years with patients in neuromuscular treatment clinics at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, Ostschweizer Children's Hospital in Switzerland and University Hospital Tübingen in Germany.