Scientists spark hopes for more efficient bionic limbs

Israel21C ^ | 10/19/07

[ddtorquee]

For patients who have lost a limb, prosthetic devices frequently come as mixed blessing. Aesthetically, they may provide a valuable boost to self-esteem and confidence. But heavy, uncomfortable and difficult to use, most will seldom provide a level of sensitivity sufficient to render them anything other than an additional encumbrance.

For a group of researchers at Hebrew University [of Israel], though, one novel approach to the measurement of brain activity has suggested how one day a metal-and-plastic limb might operate just as effectively as its flesh-and-blood prototype - and, in the process, teach us more about how the brain interacts with the body.

In an article recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience, neurophysiologists Eran Stark and Prof. Moshe Abeles describe how their new method for measuring and deciphering the electrical activity of nerve cells avoids many of the drawbacks of conventional approaches.

...The approach involves measuring the activity of all nerve cells located at an intermediate distance (100-200 micrometers) from a recording electrode. In this way, multiple independent readings can be obtained from many adjacent points - a crucial step in the determination of highly accurate measurements. Such accuracy might allow for a future robotic limb able to precisely obey its user's neuronal commands, or a device implanted in a paralysed limb which artificially stimulates existing muscles to move in a natural manner.

[sweetiepiezer]

ping

[USMCPOP]

Here’s a good one - my son’s C.O.

http://www.disaboom.com/Living/Assistive-Technology/Articles/John-Kuniholm%E2%80%99s-An-Ordinary-Man-with-an-Extraordin.aspx

I’ve spent a bit of time around him, and he’s a good guy.

[Popocatapetl]

I see the eventual development of monitoring “sleeves” that will be surgically put around the three major arm nerves.

This is similar to an intelligence gathering technique in which a sleeve is put around an undersea communications cable to monitor all traffic going through the cable without penetrating it.

Much lower tech, the nerve sleeves would only need to monitor perhaps 8-10 different types of nerve cells in the nerve, like wires in the cable, and some of these signals can be ignored, such as the cells that uniquely carry chronic pain signals.

Then the signals measured by the sleeve would electrically go to a simple microprocessor for analysis and conversion to an electrical signal commanding the arm. Since electricity travels much faster than does nerve cell signals, it could be timed to mimic them.

Prosthetic arms themselves will be much more advanced, capable of smooth, subtle and gentle motion, and also strong motion.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[ddtorquee]

Wow. Thank you.

[TheDon]

The long term solution is the regrowth of limbs and other body parts. The way things are going, it can’t be that far off.