Slow wave contractions play an essential role in the normal functions of many electrically excitable human organs like uterus, cortex, muscles and so on. In nonpregnant human uterus, the inner layer of myometrium contracts in vastly different manners during different times in its lifecycle. In human brain, slow wave vessel peristalsis (called vasomotion) has an important impact on the waste clearance in central nervous system. In human lower leg muscle, vasomotion in the vessel of calf muscle has different patterns between healthy controls and diabetic patients.

A comprehensive study of slow wave contractions in these human organs is of great importance to clinical diagnosis, optimized treatment, and prevention.  However, due to the limitations of clinically feasible imaging modalities, slow wave contractions are not well studied in the past decades. To address these challenges, we developed a noninvasive high-resolution electrophysiological imaging system for multiple electrically excitable human organs, which are feasible for long-term mapping in an objective and quantitative way.

Firstly, I will introduce the development and validation of uterine peristalsis imaging (UPI) in nonpregnant women. Then, I will present my major work in the imaging and quantification of uterine peristalses in nonpregnant women with regular menstrual cycle and abnormal gynecological conditions. Secondly, I will talk about the development of ultraslow electrophysiological imaging (USEI) system to noninvasively image the slow wave vasomotion on the entire cortex surface in high temporal resolution on healthy volunteers, which is also clinically ready for patients with Amyloid deposition in different pathological stages. The rich USEI data provides quantitative, noninvasive biomarkers of vasomotion and spatial distribution of vasomotion over the entire 3D cortex surface. Thirdly, I will talk about the development of electromyographical imaging system in human lower leg muscles to study the vasomotion in diabetic patients.