<
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/bionic-hand-fuses-with-bones-neurons>
'A collaborative effort of researchers from Italy, Australia, Sweden, and the
US has led to the development of a bionic arm that can fuse with the bones and
work with the neurons in the body to deliver high functionality, a press
release said.
In a farming accident twenty years ago in Sweden, Karin lost her right arm. She
was given a conventional prosthesis that she found not only uncomfortable but
also unreliable. Karin did not find the prosthesis was helping her carry on
with her routine life in a meaningful way.
To make the situation worse, Karin faced phantom limb pain, which she describes
as akin to "my hand in a meat grinder." This put Karin under a lot of stress
and she had to take high doses of painkillers.
Karin's experience with her prosthetic arm is not different from most amputees,
many of whom even reject sophisticated prostheses because of the pain and
discomfort associated with attachment. This often results in extremely limited
or unreliable control over the prosthesis and a collaborative effort of
researchers from different parts of the world set their minds to change it.
Led by Max Ortiz Catalan, research head of neural prosthetics at the Bionics
Institute in Australia, the team was looking for ways to fuse an electronic
prosthesis with the neurons in the body, which can effectively control its
movement.
Additionally, to achieve more accurate attachment, the team turned to
osseointegration, a process where the titanium of the prosthesis fuses into the
bone tissue to create a mechanical connection, which conventional prostheses
lack.
Karin became the first recipient of the bionic hand, for which surgery was
performed in Sweden to rearrange the nerves and muscles in her hand to provide
more motor control information to the prosthesis.'
Via
What Could Go Right? October 19, 2023:
https://theprogressnetwork.org/poland-election-results-tusk-opposition/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
