Magnetoelastic sensor as a probe for muscular activity - An in vivo experiment

In this work, a new application of a magnetoelastic sensor based on an amor phous ferromagnetic core is presented. The sensor has been developed in ord er to detect, measure and monitoring the muscular activity in laryngeal mus cles. It consists on a ring-shape magnetic circuit in which the magnetic co re is a high susceptibility magnetostrictive amorphous ribbon. The magnetic core as well as the copper winding is covered with silicone in order to pr ovide biocompatibility and elasticity to the sensor structure. The toroidal shape of the sensor makes it sensitive to mechanical deformations along th e ring plane. The simplicity of its design and the basic principles of work ing make it suitable as a probe to measure stresses inside any kind of musc le in the body. This fact could be the first step to improve the control of muscular activity, which constitute one of the topics of greatest interest in the modern Medicine. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved .