Walter Besio, a biomedical engineer at the University of Rhode Island, has received a $397,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to further improve his “tri-polar concentric electrodes.”

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — You probably know about electrodes, especially if they’ve been put on your chest to measure your heartbeat. They gather electrical impulses from a wide area of the body.

But a University of Rhode Island researcher says he has developed an electrode with two concentric rings around its core, making the device four times more sensitive and able to focus on specific parts of the body, while screening out electrical “chaff.”

The device, barely the size of a contact lens, with rings made of gold-plated copper, may also be able to send electrical signals to specific parts of the body, making treatment of some forms of epilepsy easier.

“It focuses the stimulation down into the tissue,” said URI biomedical engineer Walter Besio, who calls his devices “tri-polar concentric electrodes” because of the concentric rings and metal core that soak up the electrical impulses.

Having three conducting elements instead of the one found on conventional electrodes lets him subtract unwanted electrical noise then the device is in a listening mode.

“If you put an innertube in a pool of water, inside the water is flat,” he explained. The ring system “is an attenuator for all that chop.”

Just being able to listen more carefully to the electrical impulses in the body, and particularly in the brain, has big advantages, Besio said.

It may also be sensitive enough to read subtle movements or thoughts, giving paralyzed people better control of artificial limbs.

“Presently, noninvasive systems are black and white, on or off. They can either do something, or not do something,” said Besio. “With the higher sensitivity of these electrodes, we can get information from more specific areas of the brain to perceived thoughts, and have more than just an on-off switch.”

The other area where he says the two-ring electrodes might be useful is in treating epilepsy.

“I heard from a lot of my neurologist colleagues, and from parents of children who have gone through noninvasive procedures to find out where the seizure is originating, that many times they never find it. This kind of electrode should give them that kind of capability,” he said.

Not only does the new electrode seem to listen better to the impulses doctors want to measure, it may also transmit impulses to various parts of the body, a development that may be useful for treating the epilepsy by sending electrical signals to the part of the brain that is misfiring, calming the errant electrical activity without the need for drugs and surgery.

“For some seizures, they’re drilling holes in the head to put electrodes inside,” Besio said.

The electrode may be particularly useful for life-threatening seizures that last 30 minutes or more, a condition known as status epilepticus, which kills up to 40,000 people in the United States each year, he said.

“If you can [use the electrode] to detect a seizure that is about to happen, then apply the stimulation [to prevent it], some people will say you have cured their epilepsy. That’s the goal I’m working with,” said Besio.

He’s been given a $397,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to further develop the design. He will be using the funds, along with a $15,000 grant from the Rhode Island Foundation, to see if using the electrodes to stimulate the body will cause pain, changes in heart rate or other problems.

The design is under review by the U.S. Patent Office.

Besio said a few companies have expressed an interesting in developing the electrode.

One is Astro-Med Inc. [NASDAQ:A LOT] in West Warwick, which was looking at it for its Grass Technologies product group. But the interest there seems to have waned.

“Another company [outside the U.S.] is pretty much ready to push it. But I’d rather create jobs in Rhode Island than in some other country,” Besio said.

gemery@projo.com