UWB Microwave Functional Brain Activity Extraction for Parkinson’s Disease Monitoring

Microwaves have proven their imaging capabilities to visualize the body composition for medical applications thanks to their penetration inside biological structures. In this context, this paper presents a novel methodology that aims to extract not just the internal morphology but also the brain’s functional activity using the UWB Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) technique to have simultaneously functional monitoring and imaging capability and apply it to monitor the Parkinson’s disease. The radiofrequency system is composed of two orthogonal sets of double UWB probes operating in the frequency range of 0.5 GHz - 1.5 GHz. An experimental set-up has been devised that avoids complex in-vivo testing, albeit allows a system proof-of-concept validation. A bio-tag consisting of an optically modulated photodiode is used to emulate local medium changes associated to cell activity. The proposed system is used to first extract the modeled brain Action Potential (AP) to validate the performance of the bio-tag, and then to monitor the Parkinson’s disease (PD) based on the beta frequency band character within basal ganglia–thalamocortical (BGTC) which is a key marker for the PD. The results show a good capability of locating and differentiating the signals generated within the phantom by the bio-tag, alternatively emulating the healthy and PD’s state, based on the frequency. The obtained results of the functional monitoring technique on distinguishing the healthy from non-healthy brain model activity, as well as in the phantom mimicking the average proprieties of a human head, will serve as a basis for detecting functional diseases in the future.