Friday 11 February 2011

Full control with a bionic arm

After amputations, the nerve cells in the stump remain active and healthy, at least for a while. This is now being used by a researchers to create and allow use of highly dexterious, thought controlled prothetics.

Todd Kuiken, a biomechanical engineer at Northwestern University, and his team are looking at how different patterns of brain activity can be used to control prosthetic limbs.
They do this by connecting the nerves from the stump to chest muscles. When the patient thinks about moving his chest muscles, the signals are picked up by the nerves that were previously connected to the arm and interpreted by a computer which relays the information to the bionic arm. This has the potential to give patients control over a wider range of movements than was ever possible before.

With conventional prosthetics people tend to lose control over their nerves, as they are no longer used, but with the new technology, nerve signals are becoming stronger. This could be due to the brain getting used to the rewired pathways.

Next, Kuiken's team wants to make the technology accessible to a greater number of patients. They plan to develop the system so it can be applied to less high-tech prosthetics currently on the market.

Claudia Mitchell - first woman to receive a bionic arm. (Credit: Dayna Smith - The Washington Post)



43 comments:

  1. That's good. We should already have these, fully functional and low cost for everyone. But no, we've all got to be greedy.

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  2. that is very cool hope they continue to make advances in this field!

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  3. that thing is sick. if i could afford that i would go get in a car crash right now

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  4. Technology at its finest.

    Is it just me, or is anyone else afraid to arm-wrestle this chick??

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  5. One of the best blogs i have seen !
    Keep up the good work man!

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  6. That is creepy awesome. Starwars here we come~!

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  7. thats amazing but what if the person thinks about moving it when they dont want to? like you cant really control your thoughts.

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  8. AMAZING! I love reading about technology like this! I am so excited to see how great the prosthetic limb looks! I thought it was a photo manipulation at first.

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  9. That is crazy awesome. Love stuff like this. Technology is amazing.

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  10. Amazing! Might add some subjects to my study to be able to get into this kind of research :)

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  11. With things like this though it is a balancing act between high performance and cost. If they hope to be able to market this to the health service or to military casualities they need to make it so they are affordable under a strict budget.

    Good post as always, Man.

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  12. This kind of technological breakthrough really does excite me. One step closer to I, Robot!

    Keep up the interesting posts

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  13. This is pretty awesome. I just saw a thing on the history channel about this kind of thing.

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  14. nice want more scifi to real life conversions

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  15. Very good to know that this kind of tech is progressing. Makes me feel reassured that there will be a cure/solution to almost any problem soon. Kinda...

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  16. thats great they are able to restore lives like this

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  17. Kinda reminds me of Terminator

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  18. That'd be pretty cool for handjobs.

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  19. When I saw the image I immediately remembered the Fullmetal Alchemist anime. Good to see another big step in medical science.

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  20. It's amazing what they can do these days

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  21. Unbelievable.
    We've come a long way from the peg-leg.

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  22. technology scares me sometimes.

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  23. Woah, if only they did that to legs, theres this girl in my class. Shes black and legless.

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  24. Can it rip someone's heart out Mortal Kombat style?

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  25. that's pretty neat. it'll be good when it becomes more commercially available.

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  26. those technological advances are unbelievable, soon there will be nearly nothing we can't do
    it's cost,however,makes up for the awesomeness

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  27. In a few years we'll all be cyborgs

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  28. this is like full metal alchemist's automail!

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  29. I want to give her a high-five!

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  30. Tech is advancing very fast... Robocop will be available soon :P

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