https://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Medical imaging devices such as endoscopes transmit their data via cables to monitors and hospital information systems. In collaboration with partners, Fraunhofer researchers in the OWIMED project are working to make data cables superfluous in the operating room of the future. The project team has developed a prototype for an endoscope that uses light to transmit the images from a laparoscopic procedure in the abdominal cavity. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-05-powered-link-wireless-endoscope-stream.html Mon, 04 May 2026 13:20:06 EDT news697112101 A team of engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology's Wearable Intelligent Systems and Healthcare Center, working with colleagues affiliated with several institutions in South Korea, has developed a microscale brain–computer interface that is small enough to be placed between hair follicles on a user's head. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-microscale-braincomputer-interface-small-hair.html Tue, 08 Apr 2025 10:00:03 EDT news663324706 Every year, more than 795,000 American adults suffer a stroke, and one in four adults worldwide will suffer a stroke in their lifetime. Early action can reduce rates of death and disability. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-newly-patented-device-treatment-patients.html Thu, 03 Apr 2025 04:21:05 EDT news662872862 The sport of roller skiing has long been plagued with concerns. The wheels of the skis roll differently, which can cause the individual's speed to vary considerably, and as such, the finish times can be impacted by several minutes. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-fair-play-roller-swedish-students.html Fri, 21 Feb 2025 12:37:04 EST news659363821 When Michael Adams was researching health insurance options in 2023, he had one very specific requirement: coverage for prosthetic limbs. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-01-health-limit-coverage-prosthetic-limbs.html Thu, 09 Jan 2025 08:50:01 EST news655634934 McGill University researchers have made a breakthrough in diagnostic technology, inventing a "lab on a chip" that can be 3D-printed in just 30 minutes. The chip has the potential to make on-the-spot testing widely accessible. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-made-to-order-diagnostic-horizon-lab-chip.html Wed, 29 Nov 2023 16:20:03 EST news620497201 Griffith researchers have developed a diagnostic tool to streamline the custom fitting of bionic prosthetic limbs which usually involve an arduous process of trial and error. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-closer-custom-bionic-limbs-amputees.html Fri, 06 Oct 2023 12:25:05 EDT news615813903 Muscles waste as a result of not being exercised enough, as happens quickly with a broken limb that has been immobilized in a cast, and more slowly in people reaching an advanced age. Muscle atrophy, how clinicians refer to the phenomenon, is also a debilitating symptom in patients suffering from neurological disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS), and can be a systemic response to various other diseases, including cancer and diabetes. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-muscles.html Mon, 14 Nov 2022 11:27:04 EST news587647621 Phillip Cline, 59, distinctly remembers the moment he became paralyzed from the neck down. He was run off the road while driving a motorcycle on July 4, 1996, at 1:20 p.m. in Wisconsin. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-chicago-shirley-ryan-abilitylab-world-renowned.html Fri, 02 Sep 2022 13:03:04 EDT news581342581 Engineering researchers have developed a hybrid machine-learning approach to muscle gesture recognition in prosthetic hands that combines an AI technique normally used for image recognition with another approach specialized for handwriting and speech recognition. The technique is achieving far superior performance than traditional machine learning efforts. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-hybrid-machine-learning-approach-prosthetic-limb-gesture.html Mon, 07 Feb 2022 10:28:16 EST news563452091 Stan Schaar, who lost his left leg in an accident while helping a neighbor, never thought he would again feel the sensation of effortlessly walking with two healthy legs. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-power-powered-exoskeleton-amputees-effort.html Mon, 11 Oct 2021 11:00:03 EDT news553145701 Previous definitions of "well-being," limited to taking a brisk walk and eating a few more vegetables, feel in many ways like a distant past. Shiny watches and sleek rings now measure how we eat, sleep, and breathe, calling on a combination of motion sensors and microprocessors to crunch bytes and bits. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-health-motion-devices-personal.html Thu, 23 Sep 2021 08:42:31 EDT news551605344 Houston Methodist Neurological Institute researchers from the department of neurosurgery shrunk a deadly glioblastoma tumor by more than a third using a helmet generating a noninvasive oscillating magnetic field that the patient wore on his head while administering the therapy in his own home. The 53-year-old patient died from an unrelated injury about a month into the treatment, but during that short time, 31% of the tumor mass disappeared. The autopsy of his brain confirmed the rapid response to the treatment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-magnetic-device-glioblastoma-first-in-world-human.html Thu, 22 Jul 2021 16:57:26 EDT news546191840 Metastasis of cancer is the main cause of cancer relevant death as well as the main challenge of cancer treatment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-reveals-y-box-protein-cancer-metastasis.html Fri, 11 Jun 2021 10:34:17 EDT news542626456 Scientists have yet to answer the age-old question of whether or how sound shapes the minds of fetuses in the womb, and expectant mothers often wonder about the benefits of such activities as playing music during pregnancy. Now, in experiments in newborn mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins report that sounds appear to change "wiring" patterns in areas of the brain that process sound earlier than scientists assumed and even before the ear canal opens. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-brain-earlier-previously-thought.html Fri, 12 Feb 2021 16:06:53 EST news532368386 Humans do a lot of things with their hands: We squeeze avocados at the grocery story, scratch our dogs behind the ears and hold our significant others' hands. They are things that many people who have lost limbs can't do. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-closer-reality-prosthetics.html Fri, 22 May 2020 10:18:25 EDT news509361502 From bed-sized iron lungs to portable, computer-controlled systems, the ventilators used to treat life-threatening respiratory diseases—and so much in demand today—have had a 'remarkable journey." https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-ventilators-centuries.html Fri, 17 Apr 2020 10:20:04 EDT news506336747 With its promise to bring new insights into the diagnosis and treatment of conditions as varied as cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, bioelectronic medicine is now in the spotlight. Bringing together various fields like biochemistry, molecular medicine, neuroscience, immunology, electrical and mechanical engineering, computer science and mathematics, bioelectronic medicine focuses on electrical signaling in the nervous system. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-01-artificial-nerve-cells-chronic-diseases.html Tue, 28 Jan 2020 09:50:02 EST news499426149 As a researcher in a health-care-related field, I am keenly aware of how frequently economics enters the discussion these days. I am a biomedical engineer who works with patients using orthopedic devices: prosthetics, such as an artificial limb; and orthotics, which help improve the function of an intact limb, like a knee brace or custom shoe insert. In recent years, these devices have become far more complex and technologically advanced, to the point where they can sense walking patterns and modify their function accordingly. Others contain motorized components to add power. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-08-dont-knee-brace-cognitive-biases.html Wed, 28 Aug 2019 10:33:45 EDT news486207214 New research from a team at Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine gives unexpected insights into how the nervous system controls leg movements in walking. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-08-insights-nervous-leg-movements.html Thu, 09 Aug 2018 11:16:30 EDT news453032180 In a new study published in Prosthetics and Orthotics International, Mayo Clinic researchers describe the direct medical costs of falls in adults with a transfemoral amputation. In this type of amputation, the leg is amputated above the knee. This work "provides a comparison for policymakers when evaluating the value of more expensive ... technologies," say the authors. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-07-prosthetic-knee-amputees.html Tue, 11 Jul 2017 13:04:00 EDT news418997028 A new surgical technique devised by MIT researchers could allow prosthetic limbs to feel much more like natural limbs. Through coordination of the patient's prosthetic limb, existing nerves, and muscle grafts, amputees would be able to sense where their limbs are in space and to feel how much force is being applied to them. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-05-prosthetic-limbs-natural.html Wed, 31 May 2017 14:00:09 EDT news415444031 New research suggests that young patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL)—the most common type of pediatric cancer—and their and their parents are likely to report to their physician that they took more of their anti-cancer medication than they actually did. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-02-children-parents-over-report-leukemia-treatment.html Thu, 02 Feb 2017 10:57:41 EST news405255456 The complexity of neural networks makes them difficult to analyze, but manmade computing systems should be simpler to understand. In a study published in PLOS Computational Biology, researchers applied widely used neuroscience approaches to analyze the classic games console Atari 2600 - which runs the videogame "Donkey Kong" - and found that such approaches do not meaningfully describe how the console's microprocessor really works. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-classic-video-game-brain.html Thu, 12 Jan 2017 14:00:10 EST news403444852 (Medical Xpress)—It goes without saying that the brain is an unbelievably complex piece of biological architecture, but the depth of that complexity is often unaddressed. Applying network theory to the brain has clarified many neural functions and led to the discovery that brain structures function as hubs for a number of interrelated brain networks. But to date, no fine-grained map of the brain's spatiotemporal dynamics exists. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-03-stunning-4d-somatosensory-brain.html Mon, 28 Mar 2016 09:30:01 EDT news378362993 A researcher from Florida Atlantic University has come up with a unique way to monitor sickle cell disease—a serious blood disorder—using a smart phone. With a $166,935 grant from the National Science Foundation, E. (Sarah) Du, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering in FAU's College of Engineering and Computer Science, and principal investigator, will develop a portable smart sensor and a phone application for patients to analyze and store the results of their blood tests on a smart phone. This technology will enable them to keep a close watch on any abnormal activities in their blood cells and take important steps to manage this disease with early intervention. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-09-team-blood-disorder-smart.html Tue, 22 Sep 2015 12:21:03 EDT news362143250 Researchers from the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology (MRC CDN) at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London, have discovered a new molecular 'switch' that controls the properties of neurons in response to changes in the activity of their neural network. The findings, published in Science, suggest that the 'hardware' in our brain is tuneable and could have implications that go far beyond basic neuroscience - from informing education policy to developing new therapies for neurological disorders such as epilepsy. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-09-brain-cells-tweaked.html Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:00:02 EDT news361107784 Cancer researchers dream of the day they can force tumor cells to morph back to the normal cells they once were. Now, researchers on Mayo Clinic's Florida campus have discovered a way to potentially reprogram cancer cells back to normalcy. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-08-code-reprogramming-cancer-cells.html Mon, 24 Aug 2015 11:00:02 EDT news359611482 In the last two decades, prosthetic limb technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, the most advanced prostheses incorporate microprocessors that work with onboard gyroscopes, accelerometers, and hydraulics to enable a person to walk with a normal gait. Such top-of-the-line prosthetics can cost more than $50,000. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-07-cheaper-high-performance-prosthetic-knee.html Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:05:12 EDT news357480271 Microbes in the human body are estimated to outnumber human cells by 10 to 1, yet research on how they affect health is still in its infancy. A perspective article published by Cell Press on March 12th in Trends in Biotechnology presents evidence that gut microbes produce gases that may contribute to gastrointestinal diseases and could be used as biomarkers for one's state of health. As means to measure these potential biomarkers, the authors suggest two novel gas-sensing systems, one of which is an electronic gas sensor in the form of a pill you can swallow. These systems may offer a reliable and economical way to understand the impact of intestinal gases on human health, paving the way for the development of new diagnostic techniques and therapies. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03-intestinal-gas-diseases.html Thu, 12 Mar 2015 12:00:02 EDT news345367625