ACEIZE Tracking the current state of Science and Technology

In a project called, LifeHand, An team of Italian researchers at Campus Bio-Medico in Rome were able to create a robotic forearm that could be controlled by an amputee's mental impulses. A 29 year old man lost his forearm in a car crash. The team implanted electrodes in the man's forearm which were connected to the nerves left from the accident. The implants were able to send signals to a robotic arm which responded accurately to the amputee's commands 95% of the time. The experiment lasted one month.

During the experiment, the robotic arm was not attached to the patient. Instead the arm and associated machinery is kept separate from the patient. The bulky machinery is required to to translate nerve impulses into digital signals. The same researchers have started a project called 'SmartHand' which is working to make that technology smaller so that it can be implanted onto the patient for extended periods of time.

Other thought controlled prostheses project involved a whole arm replacement being pursued in the United States. The whole arm replacement requires the use of nerves in the chest to control an arm. This is somewhat more difficult for a patient to control than a forearm replacement because the nerves in the chest need to be retrained to move a hand.

Other thought controlled robotics experiments have also been successful recently. In the case of Asimo, the whole robot was controlled by the thoughts of a researcher.