Grant: Proof of Principle Program - Phase I

Inducing and maintaining total intravenous anesthesia requires the continuous infusion of at least two carefully titrated drugs; one to suppress consciousness and another to suppress response to pain. Typically these drugs are infused by syringe pumps, manually programmed to deliver them at a fixed rate, based on the patient's body weight. However, response to these drugs varies between patients and situations (e.g., different types of surgery, extreme bleeding, prolonged infusion). Anesthesiologists manually adjust dosing to account for this variability based on feedback from physiological sensors. Closed-loop control systems, designed by control engineers, can regulate and personalize drug infusion by using feedback from the patient's response. By optimizing drug infusion for each individual and situation, these systems will improve patient safety during anesthesia, and will lead to faster recovery times and lower complication rates. In this project, our unique interdisciplinary team of anesthetists and control engineers, seeks to finalize the design of a certifiably safe closed-loop control system for anesthesia.