Wireless and Touch Sensitive Bionics

Researchers at the Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair are developing a way for people with prosthetic limbs to send and receive sensory information to and from the limb to the brain. A neural interface is embedded into the nerve trunk that wirelessly sends signals to a receiver implanted in the prosthetic limb. Specific verve signals are selected for desired movements and the sensory signals are sent to the prosthetic. "People have produced very sophisticated prosthetics which will do very sophisticated things, but in almost every case the thing that people are struggling with is to link it up successfully to the nervous system," says Dr. James Fawcett a Professor at Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair. "A lot of soldiers who have lost limbs apparently have given up using these devices and gone back to a simple hook, which at least is reliable. The device we're producing is for recording sensory impulses in a nerve and gets inserted into the limb nerve itself," says Dr. Fawcett. The neural interface has been tested in mice and rats for twelve months without any problems. The researchers fear that the implanted device could interrupt signals by strangling the nerve fibers, but researchers have seen not seen this problem occur in the rats or mice. "We have a program which will develop a prototype interface in about three years' time and that will then be taken forward through the legislature for human safety and toxicity trials," predicts Dr. Fawcett.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17183888