For centuries prosthetics have helped amputees, but until now those prosthetics, while helpful, have not given the same function as what was lost. However, a group of researchers are working on changing that.
A new piece of technology is being developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities that will make clumsy prosthetics a thing of the past.
The new device is said to be less invasive, more accurate, and allows amputees to move a robotic prosthetic with their arm using brain signals.
Researchers published their findings in a paper in the Journal of Neural Engineering. Jules Anh Tuan Nguyen, a postdoctoral researcher and University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering alumnus, shared that there is nothing else like this tech.
“It’s a lot more intuitive than any commercial system out there,” Nguyen said in a press release. “With other commercial prosthetic systems, when amputees want to move a finger, they don’t actually think about moving a finger.”
The tech, developed at the University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, is a small implantable device that attaches to the peripheral nerve in a person’s arm.
Continue reading… “Researchers create a prosthetic arm that can be moved with an amputee’s mind”
