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DARPA-funded prosthetic arm reaches phase three, would-be cyborgs celebrate
Last we heard from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, it wanted a neurally-controlled bionic arm by 2009. Needless to say, the school overshot that goal by a tiny bit, and have now been beaten (twice) to the punch. But DARPA sees $34.5 million worth of promise in their third and final prototype, which will enable the nine pound kit (with 22 degrees of freedom and sensory feedback) to begin clinical trials. Rechristened the Modular Prosthetic Limb, it will be grafted onto as many as five real, live persons, the first within the year. Using the targeted muscle reinnervation technique pioneered at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, patients will control these arms directly with their thoughts, and for their sakes and the fate of humanity, hopefully not the other way around. Press release after the break.
Targeted muscle reinnervation enables your brain to control prosthetic limbs
If you're suddenly overcome with an eerie feeling of déjà vu, fret not, as this idea has certainly been brainstormed before. As scientists aim to make prosthetic limbs more user-friendly, a certain physiatrist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and professor at Northwestern University has developed a technique that enables artificial arms to react directly to the brain's thoughts. The process, dubbed targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), works by rewiring residual nerves that once carried information to the now-lost appendage to the chest; when the person thinks to move their arm, the chest muscle contracts, and with the help of an electromyogram (EMG), the signal is "directed to a microprocessor in the artificial arm which decodes the data and tells the arm what to do." Currently, "only" four movements are possible after the procedure, but studies are already in full swing to determine if TMR could be used to bless future patients with an even fuller of range of motion.[Image courtesy of ScienceDaily]