Flexible skin patch for multi-biomarker monitoring as a tool for mental disorder assessment

Abstract

After the COVID-19 pandemic and concurrent social issues, the number of people diagnosed with mental disorders including anxiety and depression is significantly increased. Conventional psychiatric diagnoses are largely based on a doctor interview or a self-reported data which are rather subjective and can be misinterpreted. Therefore, many efforts are made by researchers and clinicians to provide objective biomarkers using transcranial doppler ultrasonography, electroencephalography, or magnetic resonance imaging. However, these methods need bulky and complex equipment and are difficult to be applied on everyday life. Recently, reports suggested that the heart rate variability (HRV) which measures the variance in time between the heartbeats showed great potential to verify mental illness by monitoring the autonomic nervous system activity of the patients.[1] Although the correlation between these biomarkers and mental illness is proved by many papers, mobile sensors with multiple biomarker detection tools to enhance the accuracy are not fully investigated. In this report, we developed a flexible skin patch sensor for multi-biomarker detection capable of photoplethysmography (PPG), electrocardiography (ECG), motion detection, and temperature measurement. The skin patch sensor for measuring HRV with multiple biomarkers might facilitate assistive mental illness diagnosis tool for the psychiatrists and the researchers after further improvements.