14 DAY TRIAL // Experts from the University of Michigan (UM) have recently announced the development of a new type of brain implant that could have the ability to boost people's capacity of interacting with their prosthetic devices, leading to an increased quality of life. Robotic appendages could thus become a lot more controllable, and people would have the ability to move them around, twist them and bend them according to will. They basically work in the same ways as previous methods of collecting brain signals, only more effectively and a lot better, Technology Review reports.
An electrically conductive polymer is the basis for the new implants, the UM team reports. The instruments are made up of tiny polymer cups, which are so small, that they fit neatly at the end of the severed nerve endings. Electrical signals – which continuously move down the nerves even if there is no limb for them to flow to – are then picked up through these small cups, and sent to a computer, which translates the current into a set of commands for the robotic limb.
“This looks like it could be an elegant way to control a prosthetic with fine movement. Rather than having a big dumb piece of plastic strapped to the arm, you could actually have an integrated tool that feels like it's part of the body,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Rutledge Ellis-Behnke says. The expert has not been involved in the new investigation. Thus far, the utility and life span of the implanted devices has been limited by the fact that scar tissue grows over the affected area, which makes constructing peripheral nerve interfaces next to impossible.
“The nerve is constantly sending signals downstream to tell the hand what to do, even if the hand isn't there. We can interpret those signals and use them to run a prosthesis,” plastic surgeon Paul Cederna, the leader of the UM team, says. He explains that a scaffold of biological tissue seeded with muscle cells can be found inside the cup, which acts like a wire for the electrical signal in the nerves.
The nerve endings, on top of which the cup is placed, grow into it and connect to the cells, relaying the brain signals to them. The UM experts say that their approach could be used with existing wireless technologies, as they do not construct prosthetic devices themselves.