{"id":213218,"date":"2025-05-04T05:04:48","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T10:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/worlds-smallest-pacemaker-is-activated-by-light"},"modified":"2025-05-04T05:04:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T10:04:48","slug":"worlds-smallest-pacemaker-is-activated-by-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/worlds-smallest-pacemaker-is-activated-by-light","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s smallest pacemaker is activated by light"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j_0hZ8cUwgo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Northwestern University engineers have developed a pacemaker so tiny that it can fit inside the tip of a syringe \u2014 and be non-invasively injected into the body.<\/p>\n<p>Smaller than a single grain of rice, the pacemaker is paired with a small, soft, flexible, wireless, wearable device that mounts onto a patient\u2019s chest to control pacing. When the wearable device detects an irregular heartbeat, it automatically shines a light pulse to activate the pacemaker. These short pulses\u2014 which penetrate through the patient\u2019s skin, breastbone and muscles \u2014 control the pacing. #Repost<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Although it can work with hearts of all sizes, the pacemaker is particularly well-suited to the tiny, fragile hearts of newborn babies with congenital heart defects.<\/p>\n<p>Designed for patients who only need temporary pacing, the pacemaker simply dissolves after it\u2019s no longer needed. All the pacemaker\u2019s components are biocompatible, so they naturally dissolve into the body\u2019s biofluids, bypassing the need for surgical extraction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Northwestern University engineers have developed a pacemaker so tiny that it can fit inside the tip of a syringe \u2014 and be non-invasively injected into the body. Smaller than a single grain of rice, the pacemaker is paired with a small, soft, flexible, wireless, wearable device that mounts onto a patient\u2019s chest to control pacing. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1977],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-wearables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}