Stanford researchers create a cortisol detection device to measure stress, health

Researchers at Stanford University have come up with a new wearable device that can measure a patient's cortisol levels from his sweat. Cortisol, a stress hormone, usually takes several days to test. A paper describing the early development and use of technology has recently been published in Science Advances .

"We are particularly interested in sweat detection because it provides noninvasive and continuous monitoring of various biomarkers for various physiological conditions," said Onur Parlak, a postdoctoral researcher at Salleo Laboratory and lead author of the paper. in a report. "This offers a new approach for the early detection of various diseases and the badessment of sports performance."

The research team has developed a new type of flexible and extensible sensor called MS-OECT capable of selectively detecting cortisol from human sweat. includes sensors that can bind specifically to cortisol while allowing other properties, such as proteins, to cross its membrane.

"We introduce the integration of an electrochemical transistor and a custom synthetic polymer and biomimetic membrane, which acts as a molecular molecule. The authors of the study wrote: "The sensor and a network of microcapillary laser-patterned channels are integrated into a portable sweat diagnostic platform, enabling accurate acquisition of perspiration and a precise sample. delivery to the sensor interface. "

But the technology is not just for the sake of telling someone they're stressed." Cortisol levels can give a lot of insight about the condition and the health of a patient.

"Stress plays an important role in the overall health of a patient; When she is under stress, the adrenal gland releases cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream, write the authors of the paper. "Increased levels of cortisol have a detrimental effect on the regulation of various physiological processes such as blood pressure, blood sugar and carbohydrate metabolism, and sustained stress can disrupt the homeostasis of the cardiovascular, immune, renal, Therefore, continuous monitoring of cortisol levels in body fluids is very relevant to maintaining healthy physiological conditions. "

Researchers tested the prototype on a small number of volunteers against the gold standard of cortisol test, the ELISA method. had a strong positive correlation (relative standard deviation of five percent for both measures), according to the study. "In summary, we demonstrated the integration of an artificial receptor like a biomimetic polymer membrane for stable and selective molecular recognition using OECT to produce a portable sweat diagnostic platform for badysis." in real time cortisol human stress hormone "wrote.

But this team of researchers is not the only group to want to badyze sweat. In 2017 Eccrine Systems announced that she had developed a device capable of stimulating a sweat gland on a small patch of isolated skin. Its sensor can then make predictions about the perspiration of a given patient, which will allow researchers to better understand the hormones and chemicals involved in the process.

In 2016, researchers from Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley announced that they were building a prototype of a portable sensor that could collect and continually monitor users' sweat at the molecular level and then send the information via Bluetooth to a smartphone. Moreover, as early as 1945 2014 researchers at Intermountain Healthcare developed a smartphone-based test to measure salivary cortisol.