Device may allow feeling in prosthetic hands

Shayne Jacopian for redOrbit.com – @ShayneJacopian

Prosthetic limbs have evolved from hooks and peg legs to more functional replacements, culminating in robotic limbs that amputees can control with their minds. However, bionic limbs still lack sensory feedback—for now.

Daniel Moran, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering in the Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science and of neurobiology, physical therapy, and neurological surgery at the School of Medicine (dang) has developed a device that would stimulate nerves at the attachment points of bionic arms. This ultimately would allow amputees to feel sensations through their prosthetics.

According to the source, he’s received a three-year, $1.9 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to test and further develop the technology. The tech would give amputees a sensation of hot and cold, as well as a sense of touch that would enable them to adjust the amount of pressure they use when handling different kinds of items.

Luke…I am your arm

DARPA is also funding what has been nicknamed the “Luke Arm,” for the bionic arm Luke Skywalker received (spoiler alert!) after his dad cut the real one off in The Empire Strikes Back. The high-tech bionic limb, designed by DEKA Research, allows amputees to perform six different grips. Dr. Moran’s device would improve upon the prosthetic by allowing it to stimulate the ulnar nerve (funny bone) and median nerve in the elbow to give users feeling in the artificial limb, which would allow more control over the limb.

Moran and his team will be testing this device to find how many channels of information the device should be sending to nerves, making sure that they use enough to push the device to its full potential, but not so many that it’s redundant.

“If the nervous system can’t handle more than eight or 10 channels, there is no sense in putting more on there,” he says. “We want to find the bandwidth and what the nervous system can interpret with artificial sensation.”

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