is-it-hi-or-ehhhh:neurosciencestuff:A sensational breakthrough: the first bionic hand that can feelT
is-it-hi-or-ehhhh:neurosciencestuff:A sensational breakthrough: the first bionic hand that can feelThe first bionic hand that allows an amputee to feel what they are touching will be transplanted later this year in a pioneering operation that could introduce a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception.The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors.Dr Micera said that the hand will be attached directly to the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto two of the arm’s main nerves, the median and the ulnar nerves.This should allow the man to control the hand by his thoughts, as well as receiving sensory signals to his brain from the hand’s sensors. It will effectively provide a fast, bidirectional flow of information between the man’s nervous system and the prosthetic hand.“This is real progress, real hope for amputees. It will be the first prosthetic that will provide real-time sensory feedback for grasping,” Dr Micera said.“It is clear that the more sensory feeling an amputee has, the more likely you will get full acceptance of that limb,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston.“We could be on the cusp of providing new and more effective clinical solutions to amputees in the next year,” he said.DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN REALIZE HOW AWESOME THIS IS???TO DO THIS MEANS WE CAN FINALLY STITCH AXONS (LONG PART OF NEURON OR NERVE CELL THAT TRANSPORTS SIGNALS FROM JUNCTIONS BACK TO THE BRAIN) BACK TOGETHERDO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW IMPOSSIBLE THAT WAS? TO ALIGN THE DAMAGED AXONS BACK TOGETHER WAS IMPOSSIBLE WITH THIS BREAK THROUGH YOU COULD EVENTUALLY WORK UP TO GIVING THE ABILITY TO WALK AND MOVE AGAIN TO THOSE WHO CUT THEIR SPINAL CORD IN AN ACCIDENT THIS IS BEAUTIFULTHIS. IS. AMAZING. -- source link
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