Poster

[DE-P-02] Fundamental experiments of electrical impedance tomography for human body

*Yuki Oshima¹, Tada-nori Goto¹ (1. Graduate School of Science, University of Hyogo (Japan))

Various methods have been developed and put to practical use for visualization inside the human body (human body tomography).Of these, electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a technology that allows a weak current to flow from the surface of the body and obtains a cross-sectional view of the human body from the resistivity distribution. This method has been also used in the field of subsurface geophysical exploration, called as electrical resistivity tomography Compared to X-ray CT and MRI, EIT has advantages such as non-invasiveness to the human body and reducing the size of devices. EIT is especially effective in lung function monitoring. This is due to the nature of the air-rich lung, which exhibits higher resistivity than other tissues. However, there is no detailed discussion on the frequency characteristics of the electrodes, which are essential for EIT, and on the electrode stability depending on its type (e.g.,materials used for the electrodes). In addition, test experiments using simulated organisms are required before clinical trials, but the frequency characteristics of simulated organisms have hardly been studied. Therefore, in this study, we studied the basic properties of electrodes and simulated organisms, then develop the EIT system with higher accuracy than the existing system. First, we measured the frequency characteristics of the Cu-CuSO₄ electrodes were measured. In addition, we established a method for producing simulated organisms with arbitrary resistivity by adjusting the amount of NaCl added and discussed the frequency characteristics of them. Based on these findings, we found that EIT on the simulated organisms with a complex resistivity distribution enabled us to visualize the internal structure of them. For adding the information to human body tomography, the induced polarization (or complex resistivity) will be also used in future.