# Bioelectric monitoring and control of the heart

> **NIH NIH U01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $988,855

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Cardiovascular disease, such as heart failure, atrial and ventricular arrhythmias, hypertensive and valvular
heart disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the USA and the world. Importantly, over 500,000
cardiac surgeries and procedures, which require detailed cardiac diagnostics and intense monitoring, are
performed to treat arrhythmias and structural heart disease in the US each year, which together carry a morbidity
and mortality risk of 1-30%, depending on a patient's comorbidities. Cardiovascular specialists are required to
monitor the heart routinely during interventions and almost exclusively rely on surface ECG and pressure
measurements from the heart and vascular compartments and in selected cases electrical mapping of the heart.
Current state-of-art technologies for cardiac electrophysiological and surgical therapies for management of
complex atrial and ventricular arrhythmias provide limited and time-disparate data to guide interventions and
monitor patients, primarily relying on hemodynamic parameters, gross and time-consuming point-by-point
electrophysiological mapping techniques, and intermittent evaluation of blood chemistries. At present these
data, in addition to being limited, often have substantial time delays from sampling to usable readouts leading to
increase intraoperative and post-operative recovery time.
 This proposal outlines development of a conceptually new approach to cardiac monitoring that can impact
diagnostics, therapeutics, and ultimately lead to closed-loop bioelectronics control of the heart. For Quantum
Phase 1, three aims are proposed: Aim 1: Development of bioelectronic interfaces, platforms/modules, and
analytical tools for real-time assessments of the cardiac interstitial and vascular parameters (catecholamine
levels, acid-base and metabolic indices), along with high-density thin-film microarrays for mapping of cardiac
electrical function and recording of peripheral cardiac autonomic neural activity. Aim 2: Integration of monitoring
platforms, technologies, and analytics for cardiac electrophysiological mapping, multi-point cardiac pacing,
hemodynamics, autonomic function, and real-time assessments of interstitial (and plasma) neurotransmitters
and neuropeptide levels, acid-base levels, and metabolic factors. Aim 3: Discovery and validation of critical
autonomic, metabolic, and electrophysiological parameters that precede and predict adverse cardiac events in
infarcted porcine hearts and initial proof-of-concept human studies. Developing and optimizing new mapping
arrays and systems for real-time measurement and evaluation of multiple electrophysiological parameters
simultaneously with instantaneous “read-outs” of regional autonomic function (neural and cardiac interstitial
neurotransmitters) has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine and patient care.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9985810
- **Project number:** 5U01EB025138-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** JEFFREY L ARDELL
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $988,855
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-26 → 2021-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9985810

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9985810, Bioelectric monitoring and control of the heart (5U01EB025138-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9985810. Licensed CC0.

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