Now, artificial limbs that can read your mind and move

Life is never the same after losing an arm or leg, and most amputees rue the fact that their prosthetics don’t really feel like a part of their body. Here’s some good news: market players and researchers alike are coming up with new technology that can make an artificial limb read your mind.
California-based company Atom Limbs is perfecting an artificial arm that uses AI and machine learning to read electrical signals from the brain and move itself around accordingly. BBC journalist Paul Carter tried it out and proclaimed, “The arm has a full range of human motion in the elbow, wrist and individual fingers — and it provides haptic feedback (vibrations) to the wearer on their grip strength.” It doesn’t need surgery or implants; a neural interface connects the artificial arm to the brain. Carter, who was born without lower arms and legs and has used various prosthetics, found the arm much lighter.
Hugh Herr, a biophysicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), had lost his legs from the knees down after a climbing accident at 17. Researching on a neural interface that connects the prosthetics to the brain was very personal for him. “When you ask a patient ‘What is your body?’, they don’t include the prosthesis,” he told MIT Technology Review. But an artificial limb connected to the brain feels more like part of one’s anatomy, giving a huge emotional boost to those with limb loss, adds Herr, lead author of a recent study that tests how effectively a new neural interface can help manoeuvre prosthetics.
Connecting the neural interface to the prosthetic limb is a two-step process that begins with a small surgery. After a person’s lower leg is amputated, parts of the shin and calf muscles remain. The shin muscle contracts, making the ankle flex upwards. Surgery connects the shin and calf muscles to counter this. If the prosthetics is fitted and reattached to residual muscles, it can move more dynamically, reduce phantom limb pain, and allay fears of tripping and falling.

Step two involves surface electrodes measuring nerve activity between the brain and the calf and shin muscles. A tiny computer in the bionic leg decodes these nerve signals to help move the leg more naturally. “If you have intact biological limbs, you can walk up and down steps and not even think about it. It’s involuntary. That’s the case with our patients, but their limb is made of titanium and silicone,” Herr points out. They studied seven patients who had used that neural interface and found that they could climb up and down steps and slopes and walk 41% faster, nimbly dodge obstacles, with better balance. To top it all, they felt their prosthetic was truly part of their body, which worked wonders for their confidence.
Agencies