STAT March 4, 2020
People with limb injuries severe enough to require an amputation have few options to regain meaningful function in their arms or legs. Commercial prostheses, even modern ones, don’t come close to what nature created, enabling movement that feels disjointed and artificial.
In a new study published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, a team of University of Michigan surgeons and computational scientists report a new procedure that captures electrical signals from nerves in the arm severed during an amputation and uses them to guide fine movements of a prosthetic hand. The work is one of a number of efforts underway to better integrate human physiology with robotics to improve the functioning of artificial limbs.
In the new technique, a flap of...