Neural control of motor prostheses

This article talked about how scientists are looking into using neural interfaces to control prostheses, or even to control your own muscles. These devices would be able to read the brain signals and transfer them to some destination. In the case of prostheses, these signal would be used to operate the mechanical arm, leg, etc. Researchers are also seeing if they would be able to use NI's to activate muscles. This would be very beneficial to someone who has had some sort of spinal damage. The NI would in a way bypass the nervous system, and take the signal straight to the muscle it is trying to activate. A problem with this though is that the electrical activity over time will weaken the response of the particular muscle. The NI sends a standard signal to the muscle depending on the response wanted, so if the muscle is progressively weakening the person will have varied responses for the same signal. These devices in the past have successfully used to move cursors on computer screens, and are now being tested using monkeys. Scientists have used NI's in monkeys to move a robotic arm. Using the arm the monkeys were able to feed themselves. The technology for these is moving along, but it is very difficult. Before these can be used researchers must decode the different signals that go on in the brain, and be able to translate them to a correlation response. This gets even more complex when you are dealing with the motion of a hand. Due to all the movements, and intensities that a hand can do figuring the signals out can be hard. A decoder that can decipher different types of grips has already been made. This would allow someone with a prosthetic to do a wide range of things that before was impossible. They would be able to gently hold their child's hand, or even tightly grip a baseball bat. The ability to use NI's would be very beneficial to a wide range of people. It wold be able to help amputees, but it would also be beneficial for anyone with some sort of nervous system problem. Research is very much still in the early stages, but scientists are making headway.

I chose this article because I'm very interested in many different aspects of prostheses. I thought it was really cool that there is so much headway being made on this. The thought that someone would be able to move either a robotic limb or even their own using some sort of signaling device is pretty crazy.