Neural Implant To Give Control of Paralyzed Arms 42
An anonymous reader writes "A neural implant that connects to muscle-stimulating electrodes has given monkeys the ability to grasp a ball and drop it into a hole even though the monkey's arm has been anesthetized. The approach is another step towards 'rewiring' the brains and limbs of paralyzed patients. The research, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, uses a technique called functional electrical stimulation (FES), in which implanted electrodes deliver electrical current to trigger muscle contractions, providing a way to reconnect this loop."
Good to see... (Score:2, Interesting)
Great for Spinal Cord Injury but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a complaint; just an observation before someone gets excited for Professor Hawking.
A Step Backward (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether ignoring it or ignorant of it, the present research is not "another step towards 'rewiring' the brains and limbs of paralyzed patients", it's a step back from that very use.
Christopher Reeve credited FES with helping to regain what function and sensation he did.
Thew earliest use I know of was the case presented on 60 Minutes where a paralyzed woman had EMG signals produced by a bicycle-like device that would have been called FES had it had a name that long ago. These were recorded and later played back amplified into her muscles to artificially produce walking. She told Dan Rather than she would walk again within a year, and would walk down the aisle to get married. He reported on CBS Evening News only a month later that she had done exactly that. This was probably around 30 years ago because the stimulation/recording/playback was controlled by a shiny new Apple II computer.
I wanted to make a bionic frog (Score:3, Interesting)
... for a science fair project in seventh grade. My plan was to amputate a frog's legs, then replace them with electromechanical legs that had electrodes hooked up to its nerves.
I am glad I never carried about my dastardly plan. When I think of it now my mind reels with the thought of the suffering that poor creature would have endured.
But I did learn a great deal about frog anatomy as well as the histories of biology and medicine. My mother encouraged this project as her father was a surgeon.