IEEE Spectrum’s most popular biomedical stories of the last year centered both on incorporating new technologies and revamping old ones. While AI is all the rage in most sectors—including biomed, with applications like an in-brain warning system for worsening mental health and a model to estimate heart rate in real time—biomedical news this past year has also focused on legacy technologies. Tech like Wi-Fi, ultrasound, and lasers have all made comebacks or found new uses in 2025.
Whether innovation stems from new tech or old, IEEE Spectrum will continue to cover it rigorously in 2026.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and TeraPixel
When Patricio Riva Posse, a psychiatrist at Emory University School of Medicine, realized that his patient’s brain implants were sending him signals about her worsening depression before she even recognized anything was wrong, he wished he could have taken action sooner.
That experience led him and colleagues to develop “an automatic alarm system” for signs of changing mental health. The tool monitors brain signals in real time, using implants to record electrical impulses, and AI to analyze the outputs and flag warning signs of relapse. Other research groups across the United States are experimenting with different ways to use these stimulating brain implants to help treat depression, both with and without the help of AI. “There are so many levers we can press here,” neurosurgeon Nir Lipsman says in the article.
Dmitry Kireev/University of Massachusetts Amherst
In Dmitry Kireev’s lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, researchers are developing imperceptibly thin graphene tattoos capable of monitoring your vital signs and more. “Electronic tattoos could help people track complex medical conditions, including cardiovascular, metabolic, immune system, and neurodegenerative diseases. Almost half of U.S. adults may be in the early stages of one or more of these disorders right now, although they don’t yet know it,” he wrote in an article for IEEE Spectrum.
How does it work? Graphene is conductive, strong, and flexible, able to measure features like heart rate and the presence of certain compounds in sweat. For now, the tattoos need to be plugged into a regular electronic circuit, but Kireev hopes that they will soon be integrated into smartwatches, and thus simpler to wear.
Erika Cardema/UC Santa Cruz
Wi-Fi can do more than just get you connected to the internet—it can help monitor your heart inexpensively and without requiring constant physical contact. The new approach, called Pulse-Fi, uses an AI model to analyze heartbeats to estimate heart rate in real time from up to 10 feet away.
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