Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program Round 9 - 2018

Ada Poon, Electrical Engineering
Zhenan Bao, Chemical Engineering
Emmanuel Mignot, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences (Sleep Medicine)

An estimated 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from chronic sleep disorders. The current clinical sleep study requires the patient to be monitored at the clinic overnight with multiple wired sensors. This set up is intrusive and inhibits long-term monitoring. With a collaboration of Stanford experts in wireless integrated electronics (Dr. Ada Poon), electrode design (Dr. Zhenan Bao), and sleep medicine (Dr. Emmanuel Mignot), we propose to design an accurate wireless electroencephalogram sensor that can monitor brain wave activity during sleep. We will integrate flexible polymer electrodes with data recording circuitry into a small skin patch form factor, which can be attached to the forehead and transmit data to a receiving device such as a smartphone. This wearable device has the potential of enabling large scale long-term sleep monitoring to generate human data for sleep science studies. It may also lead to a more accurate home-based screening technology for sleep disorders.