Experimental research is working to improve the lives of people living with paralysis. Finding a way to bridge the severed connections between their brains and their limbs remains an urgent, but often elusive goal for researchers. Miles O’Brien reports on progress being made in restoring some people’s sense of touch. Watch full story >>
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NATHAN COPELAND WAS 18 years old when he was paralyzed by a car accident in 2004. He lost his ability to move and feel most of his body, although he does retain a bit of sensation in his wrists and a few fingers, and he has some movement in his shoulders. While in the hospital, he…
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Most people probably underestimate how much our sense of touch helps us navigate the world around us. New research has made it crystal clear after a robotic arm with the ability to feel was able to halve the time it took for the user to complete tasks. > (opens in a new tab)”>Read full story >>
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Dustin Tyler‘s research on the neural interface between man and machine plays an integral part in the upcoming ReHAB trial and push toward the Avatar XPrize.
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Brain-computer interfaces today are about where the personal computer was in the early 1980s, said A. Bolu Ajiboye, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In the not-too-distant future, he said, “they’re going to get exponentially better.”
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Bill Kochevar’s lasting legacy will be his selfless commitment to helping others with quadriplegia regain control over their limbs.
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A $3 million grant from the United States Department of Defense is supporting a group of biomedical researchers as they look to advance a platform to allow unprecedented reanimation of paralyzed limbs under direct control of the brain.
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Prostheses are morphing into mind-controlled extensions of the human body that let their wearers feel what they’re touching.
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New electrical stimulation therapy may improve hand function after stroke Read full story…
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When Keith Vonderhuevel lost his arm in a factory accident, he never thought that he’d be able to feel his hand again. That may very well change. Keith is currently a research subject at the Cleveland VA Sensory Restoration Lab, where a team of engineers is pioneering prostheses that allow amputees to feel touch, pressure…
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Touch-sensitive prosthetics are unarguably a life-changing development. For amputees, the prospect of being able to experience not just sensation with their prosthetics, but the level of intensity of the sensation as well, is powerful and infinitely useful. A team of scientists is making great strides in providing that very experience to amputees in a study…
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Nathan Copeland hasn’t been able to move his legs or hands since he broke his neck in a car accident more than a decade ago. But now that scientists have implanted four chips in his brain, Copeland can control a robotic arm with his mind and feel when someone touches its fingers. This is the…
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At the end of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker feels when a needle pricks his newly-installed bionic hand. Researchers report today in the journal Science Translational Medicine that they can do something similar: stimulating regions of a human test subject’s brain with electrodes can recreate the perception of touch in a robotic hand. Read…
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For patients whose stroke affected their ability to use their hand, a new electrical stimulation device may help. The device allows patients to control their impaired hand using their unaffected hand, and to control the timing and intensity of electrical stimulation. In a study published online on September 8 inStroke, the new method led to…
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Scientists based at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center have implanted a neuroprosthetic device that is able to coordinate the activity of the hip, knee and ankle muscles, into a stroke patient with limited mobility. As a result of this, the patient has seen a substantial improvement in both his walking speed and…
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A surgically implanted neuroprosthesis improved the walking speed and distance of a patient with limited mobility due to stroke, according to results recently published in the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. Learn More…
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A stroke patient with limited mobility more than doubled his walking speed, and nearly quadrupled his walking distance, after surgical implantation of a neuroprosthesis that electrically stimulates coordinated muscle movement, according to a report published May 31, 2016 in the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. Read full story…
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The sensors in the prosthetic hand feed information from the world into the wires in Spetic’s arm. Since, from the brain’s point of view, his hand is still there, it needs only to be recalled to life. Read full story…
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An innovative prosthetic hand is allowing people to feel again Igor Spetic, 49, lost his right hand in a work related accident five years ago. But on Oct. 9, he got to bring home an innovative prosthetic hand for the first time, one that not only has more precise gripping, but gives him back his…
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New Artificial Skin Is Sensitive to Touch and Feels Changes in Pressure It’s thin, flexible, made of organic material, and understands a range of pressures. Just like your fingertips. In fact, patches of this artificial skin already have been painted on mechanical hand-like prosthesis. Read more…
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Researchers in Cleveland are adding a sense of touch to prosthetics that will allow amputees to feel again A team of researchers at the Cleveland VA Medical Center are working on a breakthrough technology that will return the sense of touch to those who have lost a hand. Read more…
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On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, God reaches out to touch Adam. The eye locks on the small gap between their index fingers, a slice of space dividing the ethereal from man. A similar gap challenges researchers who work with paralyzed or handicapped patients — how to synch the human brain with a machine…
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Technology reconnects amputees to the world of sensation A team of scientists led by Dustin Tyler from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio is reporting a breakthrough that might soon enhance the lives of amputees around the world. They have developed a system of electrodes and algorithms that has successfully enabled people to ‘feel’ through…
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Igor Spetic was blindfolded in the test as he moved his prosthetic hand across a table as he attempted to pick up cubes about the size of walnuts. But he could not feel the cubes because he was working with the artificial hand to which he had been fitted. However, when engineers turned on a…
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