Artificial fingers
Using new technology, Amputee patients can now mind control their artificial fingers. In this way, they can move them with more precision and sophistication. They are now able to do this in real time. This is an amazing step forward in the field of mind-controlled neuroprosthetics. This brain machine interface is able to send signals to the artificial hand. Bionic Luke connects the patient’s nerve to their arm. The algorithms used in Mobius work with algorithms designed by machines to amplify these signals, so Luke could be controlled.
Paul Centerna, researcher from University of Michigan School of Medicines and plastic surgeon, made a publication. The paper published in the American Medical Journal is titled “Science Translational Medicine”. New research is funded by the US National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Statements
“Motion control is critical to helping people with amputations and other handicaps. Now AI has made a huge breakthrough in helping make it possible. We developed a technique that provides personalized control of the prosthetic device’s fingers. The system uses the nerves in the patient’s remaining limb. We have thus achieved the most advanced prosthetic limb control ever seen in the world,” said Centerna.
“You can do a lot of things with a prosthetic arm, but that doesn’t mean you actually control it with your mind. What makes the difference, and what our approach offers, is that the patient achieves control the first time and just by thinking about the movement they want to make. There is nothing for patients to learn, all the learning is done by our algorithms. This is something different from other methods,” said Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Cindy Chestek of the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering.
Participant’s review
Four amputee patients tested and approved the new technology. This new technology allows them to do even more difficult things, such as gripping objects with pliers, picking up small spherical objects, and even playing rock-paper-scissors. “It’s like having your hand again. You can do almost anything you did with a real hand, which gives you a sense of normalcy again,” said one of the participants, Joe Hamilton. He lost his hand in a fireworks accident in 2013.
A central difficulty in machine brain interfaces is the lack of a strong and stable signal from the nerves to the bionic end. This method does this by wrapping tiny muscle grafts around the nerve endings in the remaining part of the upper limb. These “regenerative peripheral nerve interfaces” can regenerate and grow new nerves and blood vessels in a period of three months.
They provide the cut off nerves with new tissue, giving them a “megaphone” that amplifies the nerve signal. The electrodes embedded in these prosthetic arms transmit the signals from the damaged nerves to the prosthetic for real time control. A special algorithm translates nerve signals into an intention for specific hand/finger movements.
The new interface is one of the most durable yet, with an average lifespan of up to a year before any adjustment.
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Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
