In diesem Wintersemester wird die im letzten Jahr erfolgreich gestartete Vortragsreihe Medical Information Sciences fortgesetzt. Renommierte Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler unterschiedlicher Fachdisziplinen und Forschungsstandorte geben jeden Dienstag ab 17:30 Uhr Einblicke in aktuelle Fragestellungen und Anwendungsgebiete des breiten Forschungsfeldes Medical Information Sciences.

Electrical sensors are used for many neurological or cardiological examinations. Here this is referred to as electroencephalography (EEG) or electrocardiography (ECG). For this purpose, electrodes are placed over the chest or on the head and electrical voltages are measured. This works quite well, but the propagation from the sources (the heart or the brain) to the sensors usually follows very "unusual" (material-dependent) paths. Alternatively, newly developed magnetic sensors can be used - here propagation takes place in a way that is noticeably more "material-independent" for most people. Due to the magnetic measurements, it might be possible in the future to perform much more accurate medical analyses, even without body contact - similar to the "tricorder" from "Star Trek".

In this talk, the Collaborative Research Center 1261 (Magnetoelectric Sensors: From Composite Materials to Biomagnetic Diagnostics), which deals with the research of novel magnetoelectric sensor systems, will be presented first. Then, some of the sensor principles designed to measure low-frequency, extremely weak magnetic fields in typical environments, i.e., without magnetic shielding and without expensive cooling systems, are presented. A brief outlook on biomedical applications for these types of sensors concludes the talk.