A non-invasive form of structural health monitoring involving applying rapid vibration to the spine to detect abnormalities could help reduce the need to use MRIs in certain patients.
For the study, published in Scientific Reports, researchers performed MRIs on the lumbar spines of 10 pairs of twins to determine how different or similar the spines of each pair were to one another. They then monitored the frequency responses of sensors placed on the skin superficial to the lumbar spine while vibration was applied to determine the efficacy of those measurements in determining spine structure compared to MRI. They concluded the structural health monitoring strategy can in fact determine structural changes between spines based on vibration response.
"Although the presence of unique [frequency response function] fingerprints for specific pathologies cannot be queried by our study design, our data suggests that further investigation into the application of SHM in large human populations is justified in that SHM could provide a diagnostic alternative to existing procedures that are difficult to access, invasive or costly," the authors wrote.