Improving the Abilities of Bionic Arm Patients 46
Al writes "Tech Review has an article about the progress being made on prosthetic arms that can be controlled using nerves that once connected to the missing limb via muscles in the chest. Todd Kuiken, director of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago's Center for Bionic Medicine has pioneered the technique, which has so far given more than 30 patients the ability to control a mechanical prosthetic simply by thinking about moving their old arm. Those who have had the procedure report using their arm to slice hot peppers, open a bag of flour, put on a belt, operate a tape measure, or remove a new tennis ball from a container. The next step is to add sensing capabilities to the arms so that this information can be fed back to the reconnected nerves."
The big question: (Score:5, Funny)
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If by 'safe', you mean 'not damaged beyond re-attachability' then probably.
Re:The big question: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The big question: (Score:4, Funny)
No, but in this sales video [gametrailers.com] you'll find how to easily win the hearts of attractive blonde women.
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I just lost my arm (Score:1, Offtopic)
Born 50 years too early. (Score:2)
It's shit like this that makes me want to be alive 100 and 150 years from now. Not because I want to live forever but because think about all the cool shit those guys are gonna have.
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Appreciate what you have today. Take a look at current technology that helps quality of life.
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I thought that 100 to 150 years from now, the last human survivors will be scraping by in the ruins of our civilization.
Assuming that there's anybody left at all.
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I spend 9/10 months of the year working for a very well regarded humanitarian aid NGO.
If I am in your country on an assignment, it's likely because it's because there is either a war, massive natural disaster or a public health emergency beyond the capability of the locals to handle.
So yeah, most of the year, I don't have electronics, gadgets, internet, TV, electricity, running water, hot water, trash collection or city water/sewage.
So yes, please tell me again how to appreciate the things I have now.
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I didn't know we had switched over to metric years already. I'd better go buy new calendars!
How about--born without an arm? (Score:1)
Then you'd get a first cut at this stuff. Are we geeky enough?
i bet (Score:3, Funny)
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Mod parent up!
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Any idea why they have to move the nerves? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Any idea why they have to move the nerves? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think it is largely logistical; moving the nerves to the chest makes it easier to reliably and comfortably interface with them (from what I have seen, strapping something to the stump is hard enough on the skin without having whatever else adding pressure points and whatnot).
Dear Slashdot, (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
Ladd
Not impressed with any mechanical arms (Score:2, Interesting)
Something is missing still. Do we know the language of nerve impulses?
Re:Not impressed with any mechanical arms (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes, but you'd have to forfeit the control of a body part. And then you'd have to have the thing you're linked to only accept as much input as the limb you've forfeited had. So (for example), you couldn't cut off a pinkie and hook a keyboard up to it - the pinkie can only do six things (clench/unclench/"bow"/"straighten"/move-away-from-ring-finger/move-towards-ring-finger), and not very well at that. You might be able to hook a mouse up though (clench for click, unclench for right-click, the other four hand
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Something is missing still. Do we know the language of nerve impulses?
We actually do know quite a lot about the language of nerve impulses, like how repeated stimulating of a post-synaptic neuron in the central nervous system either increases or decreases its response depending on the frequency and amplitude of the stimulation.
The muscle, however, is much simpler than the brain. Muscle contraction is basically frequency modulated: a nerve impulse to the muscle causes a single depolarization of the muscle cell membrane, resulting in a short twitch. Repeated high-frequency impu
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Do we know the language of nerve impulses?
Yes, it's called sodium and potassium permeability.
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Do we know the language of nerve impulses?
Do we need to? It's likely easier for a brain to learn to communicate with a motor than it is for a motor to learn to communicate with a brain.
Still a Kludge / Pay Attention to the Low End Too (Score:3, Interesting)
It's also worth following the attempts that've been made on the extreme low-end of the budget scale, to upgrade traditional prosthetics. (What is that one type called? Troutman Hook?) I'm more interested in the bionic ones because they're versatile and cool, but it's also important to consider who can afford the tech and to make it as widely available as practical.
Re:Still a Kludge / Pay Attention to the Low End T (Score:1)
This is good progress, but still a kludge because it uses muscles rather than a direct nerve attachment.
I don't know what you mean by that, because TFA says that the motors are controlled by nerves. For example, the nerves that used to innervate her biceps were just rewired to other muscles after the amputation, so that now they can take those nerves and connect them to the motors that clench the forearm. The motors therefore act as muscles, though obviously in a different physiological manner.
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This is good progress, but still a kludge because it uses muscles rather than a direct nerve attachment.
Don't quote me on this, but I'm assuming its because unconnected axons don't fire or degenerate too quickly to be used. I'm more certain that unopposed synapses are unstable and not functional, you don't want neurons just dumping neurotransmitter into nothing. I know that in development, some neurons require functional synapses for survival, and unconnected projections from neurons disappear. So I'd guess that if you have a motorneuron running into an arm that wasn't there anymore, the axon might go thro
I'd say... (Score:2)
Singularity, baby!!
Most requested improvement ... (Score:2)
DEKA bionic arm on 60 minutes (Score:1)
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One really nice thing about that video is that it shows how cool actual amputees think this technology is, as opposed to how lame (a surprising amount of) people with 2 functional hands seem to think it is.
dept tag--worst pun ever (Score:2)