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posted by Fnord666 on Friday February 10 2017, @09:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the give-em-a-hand dept.

Scientists have developed sensor technology for a robotic prosthetic arm that detects signals from nerves in the spinal cord.

To control the prosthetic, the patient has to think like they are controlling a phantom arm and imagine some simple manoeuvres, such as pinching two fingers together. The sensor technology interprets the electrical signals sent from spinal motor neurons and uses them as commands.

A motor neuron is a nerve cell that is located in the spinal cord. Its fibres, called axons, project outside the spinal cord to directly control muscles in the body. Robotic arm prosthetics currently on the market are controlled by the user twitching the remnant muscles in their shoulder or arm, which are often damaged. This technology is fairly basic in its functionality, only performing one or two grasping commands. This drawback means that globally around 40-50 per cent of users discard this type of robotic prosthetic.

The team in this study, published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, say detecting signals from spinal motor neurons in parts of the body undamaged by amputation, instead of remnant muscle fibre, means that more signals can be detected by the sensors connected to the prosthetic. This means that ultimately more commands could be programmed into the robotic prosthetic, making it more functional.

Elective surgery to route nerves to mounts for an extra pair of arms would be very helpful for home projects, too.

Full paper available from Nature


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10 2017, @04:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10 2017, @04:20PM (#465512)

    To raise your third arm, think about flexing your perineal muscle.

    I had those nerves hooked up to an Amazon Dash Button that orders diapers.