Measurement and Prediction of Insertion Force for the Mosquito Fascicle Penetrating into Human Skin

Mosquitoes are exceptional in their ability to pierce into human skin with a natural ultimate painless microneedle, named fascicle. Here the structure of the Aedes albopictus mosquito fascicle is obtained using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and the whole process of the fascicle inserting into human skin is observed using a high-speed video imaging technique. Direct measurements of the insertion force for mosquito fascicle to penetrate into human skin are reported. Results show that the mosquito uses a very low force (average 18 µN) to penetrate into the skin. This force is at least three orders of magnitude smaller than the reported lowest insertion force for an artificial microneedle with an ultra sharp tip to insert into the human skin. In order to understand the piercing mechanism of mosquito fascicle tip into human multilayer skin tissue, a numerical simulation is conducted to analyze the insertion process using a nonlinear finite element method. A good agreement occurs between the numerical results and the experimental measurements.

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