Print Email Facebook Twitter Ultrasound Transmitter for Non-invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation Title Ultrasound Transmitter for Non-invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation Author Yang, Xinyu (TU Delft Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science; TU Delft Microelectronics) Contributor Lopes Marta da Costa, T.M. (mentor) Serdijn, W.A. (mentor) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Electrical Engineering Date 2021-03-02 Abstract The main objective of this thesis is to design a transmitter channel which is implemented in a 2D phased-array ultrasound neuromodulation system aiming for the vagus nerve stimulation. The vagus nerve has the widest distribution in the parasympathetic system and it oversees several important bodily functions such as the control of mood, immune response, digestion, and heart rate. The potential of vagus nerve neuromodulation in the medical area is huge with these functions and has been studied for decades. The traditional way of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is electrical stimulation which requires surgery to implant the stimulator under the skin. It has been proven that electrical VNS has therapeutic effects on many diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, refractory epilepsy and depression. However, there are still several limitations to electrical VNS. Inside the vagus nerve, there are several fibers and some unwanted fibers will be stimulated because the spatial resolution of electrical VNS is relatively low. Side-effects including cough, throat pain, voice alteration, and dyspnea are caused due to inadequate spatial resolution. Compared with the electrical approach, focused ultrasound wave could provide a high spatial resolution and does not require any surgery. It has been proven that the ultrasound stimulation could modulate the neuron activity and applications have been conducted in the stimulation for the central and peripheral nervous system, including the vagus nerve. Using a 2-D phased array, the ultrasound VNS system could also tune its focal spot in a 3D space without any mechanical controlling stage, which enables the VNS device to be portable while remaining its precision. The detailed modulation mechanism of the VNS is still under discovery and the ultrasound VNS devices are of great potential with the advantages mentioned above. In an ultrasound VNS system, the transmitter is an essential section which determines the accuracy of spatial resolution and the amplitude of focal pressure. In this work, an ultrasound transmitter channel circuit is designed to be implemented in a 2-D phased array ultrasound VNS system. Subject vagus nerve neuromodulationultrasoundtransmitter2D array To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f001b75a-a084-4dc8-a3ac-acb468c1f7c4 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2021 Xinyu Yang Files PDF Thesis_XinyuYang_4873092.pdf 6.2 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:f001b75a-a084-4dc8-a3ac-acb468c1f7c4/datastream/OBJ/view