Testing the effect of a cerebrospinal bolus injection on the travel distance of the analgesic drug
Testing the effect of a cerebrospinal bolus injection on the travel distance of the analgesic drug from Dayana Hijaz
Testing the effect of a cerebrospinal bolus injection on the travel distance of the analgesic drug

During the summer semester of 2013, I interned at the department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio under the mentorship of Dr. Colin Drummond. In that internship, I volunteered as an undergraduate research student to work on the design of a closed loop intrathecal pump for chronic back pain relief proposed by Dr. Salim Hayek. My contribution to the project were the following:
- Established a research plan for the whole project which included completing a literature review, benchmarking competitive products, designing the experiment, gathering materials, manufacturing the models, conducting the experiment, testing and analyzing the results.
- Tested the hypothesis by conducting the designed experiment where dye was injected inside a physical model of the spinal cord, at different rates, and the travel distance was measured. Analysis suggested that the travel distance of drugs increased as bolus rate increased.

Weighting the glucose and sodium chloride for preparing the model of the cerebrospinal fluid.
Preparing the red dye solution that will model the analgesic drug.
Experiment set-up including: - new era syringe pump. - erlenmeyer flask with the model CSF solution. - fisher scientific IsoTemp 120 water bath filled with distilled water at 37 degrees. Celsius to simulate human body temperature conditions. - spinal cord model crafted from PVC tubing, Buna-N Rubber and PU rod.
Catheter tip penetrating inside the model spinal cord dura.
Dye dispersion inside the model CSF.
Experiment result 1: Variation of the travel distance with time for various bolus flow rates. Results confirm the hypothesis that as the bolus rate increases the travel distance with time also increases.
Experiment result 2: variation of the travel distance with the bolus flow rate for different travel duration. Results show that the maximum distance is achieved for a flow rate of approximately 160 uL/min suggesting an "optimum" bolus rate given the density of the model CSF.
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Testing the effect of a cerebrospinal bolus injection on the travel distance of the analgesic drug

During the summer semester of 2013, I interned at the department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio under the mentorship of Dr. Colin Drummond. In that internship, I volunteered as an undergraduate research student to work on the design of a closed loop intrathecal pump for chronic back pain relief proposed by Dr. Salim Hayek. My contribution to the project were the following:
- Established a research plan for the whole project which included completing a literature review, benchmarking competitive products, designing the experiment, gathering materials, manufacturing the models, conducting the experiment, testing and analyzing the results.
- Tested the hypothesis by conducting the designed experiment where dye was injected inside a physical model of the spinal cord, at different rates, and the travel distance was measured. Analysis suggested that the travel distance of drugs increased as bolus rate increased.

Dayana Hijaz
ME Product Design Graduate at UC Berkeley Berkeley, CA