Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective surgical treatment used to alleviate the symptoms of neurological disorders, most commonly movement disorders. However, the mechanism of how the applied stimulus pulses interact with the surrounding neuronal elements is not yet clearly understood, slowing progress and development of this promising therapeutic technology. To extend previous approaches of using isolated, myelinated axon models used to estimate the effect of DBS, we propose that taking into account entire neurons will reveal stimulation induced effects overlooked by previous studies. We compared the DBS induced volume of tissue activated (VTA) using arrays of whole cell models of subthalamic nucleus (STN) excitatory neurons consisting of a cell body and an anatomically accurate dendritic tree, to the common models of axon arrays. Our results demonstrate that STN neurons have a higher excitation threshold than axons, as stimulus amplitudes 10 times as large elicit a VTA range a fifth of the distance from the electrode surface. However, the STN neurons do show a change in background firing rate in response to stimulation, even when they are classified as sub-threshold by the VTA definition. Furthermore the whole neuron models are sensitive to regions of high current density, as the distribution of firing is centred on the electrode contact edges These results demonstrate the importance of accurate neuron models for fully appreciating the spatial effects of DBS on the immediate surrounding brain volume within small distances of the electrode, which are overlooked by previous models of isolated axons and individual neurons.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the fourth most common cancer in the world. Due to its asymptomatic nature, CRC is diagnosed at an advanced stage where the survival rate is <5%. Besides, CRC treatment using chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery often causes undesirable side-effects. As such, gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are envisaged in the field for the diagnosis and treatment of CRC. GNPs have unique physical, chemical and electrical properties at the nanoscale which make them suitable for application in biomedicine. However, for GNPs to become clinically effective, their internalisation efficiency in cancer cells must be enhanced. Folate receptor-α (FR) is overexpressed in CRC cells wherein FR helps in the uptake of folic acid within the cells. Tyro3, a novel tyrosine kinase receptor, drives cell proliferation and its overexpression is correlated with poor prognosis in CRC. Their upregulated expression in CRC cells relative to normal cells makes them an ideal target for GNPs using active targeting. Therefore, in this study receptors FR and Tyro3 were simultaneously targeted using specific antibody-coated GNPs in order to enhance the uptake and internalisation of GNPs in CRC cells in vitro. Four different types of coated-GNPs were synthesised GNPs-PEG, GNPs-anti-FR, GNPs-anti-Tyro3 and GNPs-anti-(FR + Tyro3) and incubated (0-50 ng) with three CRC cell lines namely CRL1790, CRL2159 and HCT116. Simultaneous targeting of these receptors by GNPs-anti-(FR + Tyro3) was found to be the most effective in internalisation in CRC cells compared with GNPs targeted singly to FR or Tyro3 (p <0.05). Besides this, results show that Tyro3 mediated similar internalisation efficacy to FR (p <0.05) in CRC cells using ICP-OES.

Electrical impedance technology has been well established for the last 20 years. Recently research has begun to emerge into its potential uses in the detection and diagnosis of pre-malignant and malignant conditions. The aim of this study was to systematically review the clinical application of electrical impedance technology in the detection of malignant neoplasms.

Nanoparticle-based drugs are rapidly evolving to treat different conditions and have considerable potential. A new system based on the combination of electrical impedance tomography (EIT) imaging and a power amplifier with a RF coil has been developed to study the effect of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) when excited in the MHz frequency range. We show that samples including AuNPs have a temperature increase of 1-1.5 °C due to the presence of RF excitation at 13.56 MHz which provides a higher rate of change for solutions without AuNPs. They also show more than a 50% increase in conductivity in difference imaging as the result of this excitation. The change for samples without AuNPs is 40%.

The highly compliant nature of the neonatal chest wall is known to clinicians. However, its morphological changes have never been characterized and are especially important for a customised monitoring of respiratory diseases. Here, we show that a device applied on newborns can trace their chest boundary without the use of radiation. Such technology, which is easy to sanitise between patients, works like a smart measurement tape drawing also a digital cross section of the chest. We also show that in neonates the supine position generates a significantly different cross section compared to the lateral ones. Lastly, an unprecedented comparison between a premature neonate and a child is reported.