People Can Move This Bionic Leg Just By Thinking About It (technologyreview.com) 13
An anonymous reader shares a report: When someone loses part of a leg, a prosthetic can make it easier to get around. But most prosthetics are static, cumbersome, and hard to move. A new neural interface connects a bionic limb to nerve endings in the thigh, allowing the limb to be controlled by the brain. The new device, which is described today in Nature Medicine, could help people with lower-leg amputations feel as if their prosthesis is part of them. "When you ask a patient 'What is your body?' They don't include the prosthesis," says MIT biophysicist Hugh Herr, one of the lead authors on the study. The work is personal for him: he lost both his lower legs in a climbing accident when he was 17. He says linking the brain to the prosthesis can make it feel more like part of someone's anatomy, which can have a positive emotional impact.
Getting the neural interface hooked up to a prosthetic takes two steps. First, patients undergo surgery. Following a lower leg amputation, portions of shin and calf muscle still remain. The operation connects shin muscle, which contracts to make the ankle flex upward, to calf muscle, which counteracts this movement. The prosthetic can also be fitted at this point. Reattaching the remnants of these muscles can enable the prosthetic to move more dynamically. It can also reduce phantom limb pain, and patients are less likely to trip and fall. "The surgery stands on its own," says Amy Pietrafitta, a para-athlete who received it in 2018. "I feel like I have my leg back." But natural movements are still limited when the prosthetic isn't connected to the nervous system.
In step two, surface electrodes measure nerve activity from the brain to the calf and shin muscles, indicating an intention to move the lower leg. A small computer in the bionic leg decodes those nerve signals and moves the leg accordingly, allowing the patient to move the limb more naturally. "If you have intact biological limbs, you can walk up and down steps, for example, and not even think about it. It's involuntary," says Herr. "That's the case with our patients, but their limb is made of titanium and silicone." The authors compared the mobility of seven patients using a neural interface with that of patients who had not received the surgery. Patients using the neural interface could walk 41% faster and climb sloped surfaces and steps. They could also dodge obstacles more nimbly and had better balance. And they described feeling that the prosthetic was truly a part of their body rather than just a tool that they used to get around.
Getting the neural interface hooked up to a prosthetic takes two steps. First, patients undergo surgery. Following a lower leg amputation, portions of shin and calf muscle still remain. The operation connects shin muscle, which contracts to make the ankle flex upward, to calf muscle, which counteracts this movement. The prosthetic can also be fitted at this point. Reattaching the remnants of these muscles can enable the prosthetic to move more dynamically. It can also reduce phantom limb pain, and patients are less likely to trip and fall. "The surgery stands on its own," says Amy Pietrafitta, a para-athlete who received it in 2018. "I feel like I have my leg back." But natural movements are still limited when the prosthetic isn't connected to the nervous system.
In step two, surface electrodes measure nerve activity from the brain to the calf and shin muscles, indicating an intention to move the lower leg. A small computer in the bionic leg decodes those nerve signals and moves the leg accordingly, allowing the patient to move the limb more naturally. "If you have intact biological limbs, you can walk up and down steps, for example, and not even think about it. It's involuntary," says Herr. "That's the case with our patients, but their limb is made of titanium and silicone." The authors compared the mobility of seven patients using a neural interface with that of patients who had not received the surgery. Patients using the neural interface could walk 41% faster and climb sloped surfaces and steps. They could also dodge obstacles more nimbly and had better balance. And they described feeling that the prosthetic was truly a part of their body rather than just a tool that they used to get around.
Neat! (Score:2)
Can I have a bunch of avatars with moving everything, not just one leg?
The real questions (Score:2)
One step closer to (Score:3)
I'll take two (Score:2)
The only problem... (Score:2)
The only problem is that this costs $6Million in 1977 dollars, or roughly $31Million today.
Re: (Score:2)
It's worth it, because we can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster.
I always wonder (Score:1)
for regular arms, what makes the difference between "just thinking about moving it", and actually engaging the brain to move it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say it's the difference between intentions and operations. When someone tosses a ball in front of me and I snatch it out of the air, my intent is to grab the ball. That's it - no operating of my arm - the entire focus is on the ball. The arm "just knows what to do" to make it happen. Not really of course, but the lower level "drivers" for your arm, hand, and fingers do all the calculations in real time, and in 3D, and grab the ball.
Engaging the brain to move the arm is operating it - rotate shoulder
More Emphasis on Helping People than Robotics (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that we are pretty close to being able to simply cure biological cells, even growing back a lost limb. Which will render these kind of robotics useless. We have pretty much solved already how genes in DNA work and we have learned how to manipulate them to create proteins. We have also identified which proteins we need for growing limbs in mice and chicks ( https://hms.harvard.edu/news/s... [harvard.edu] ). From vaccine research we even know how to manipulate cells to temporarily produce some protein. So in theory
Forgot to charge. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't you aware of today's trend? Users will simply wear a solar panel shirt and a wind mill baseball cap, see link below:
https://www.etsy.com/market/pr... [etsy.com]