Monitoring and Modulating the Gastrointestinal Activity: A Wirelessly Programmable System with Impedance Measurement...

This paper presents the development and benchtop validation of a system that can wirelessly acquire gastric electrical activity called slow-waves (SWs), modulate the gastrointestinal activity through stimulating with low- and high-power current pulses, and measure the tissue bio-impedance over the frequency range of 0.01 - 10 kHz. The developed system is composed of a front-end unit, and a back-end unit connected to a computer. A graphical user interface was designed in LabVIEW to process and display the recorded SWs and measured bio-impedance in real time and to configure the stimulation pulses, wirelessly. Bench-top validation showed an appropriate frequency response for analog conditioning and digitization resolution to acquire SWs. Moreover, the system was able to deliver electrical pulses at amplitudes up to ±10 mA to a maximum load of 1 kΩ. After in vivo studies, the system will be used to diagnose and treat functional gastrointestinal disorders.