New
Implant and
Muscle Grafting Technique to
Give Prosthetic Users a
Sense of
Feeling and Control
The way surgical amputations are performed has **t changed much in decades, while there has been a great deal of progress in
Prosthetic tech**logies, interfaces, and rehabilitation. One modern problem that surgical amputations fail to address is the inability of neural electrodes to
Sense signals because the nerves are simply cut and neuromas form over them. A**ther problem is that antagonist
Muscle pairs, such as a bicep and tricep, are frequently ** longer act in sync, creating control issues, hindering balance, and other physiologic difficulties. They also make it difficult to
Sense the state of a
Prosthetic connected to a limb with disconnected antagonist
Muscle pairs.
Researchers at MIT have **w developed an “agonist-antagonist myoneural interface (AMI), a unique surgical paradigm for amputation,” according to a study published in journal
Science Robotics. This essentially involves
Grafting pairs of muscles from a**ther part of the body and interfacing them with existing nerves on the severed limb. This creates a feedback loop just like in antagonist
Muscle pairs, something that a
Prosthetic can tap to
Give its wearer a
Sense of what it’s doing. Using the technique, the MIT team demonstrated in laboratory rats that the animals retained muscle-tendon sensory feedback via nervous system.
Pushing the idea further, the researchers used the muscles as a control mechanism for a
Prosthetic device, converting the electrical signals generated by the grafted muscles into signals that tell a mechanism how to move.*The next steps will involve trying this out on human patients, potentially opening an exceptional new opportunity to improve the capabilities of prostheses.
Study in
Science Robotics:
On prosthetic control: A regenerative agonist-antagonist myoneural interface…
Via:
MIT…
