The lives of those with prosthetic limbs may have the chance to improve rapidly with the introduction of thought-controlled robotic arms. These prosthetics and their electrodes will connect directly to the bones and nerves of amputees.

Max Ortiz Catalan, a postdoctoral student at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden told Wired:

The benefits have no precedent. They will be able to simultaneously control several joints and motions, as well as to receive direct neural feedback on their actions. These features are today not available for patients outside research labs. Our aim is to change that.

And bring us one step closer to the cyborg rebellion. Not just yet, but the science behind these developments reads like the seed of a sci-fi novel. Wired describes how current myoelectric prosthetics function:

Ordinary myoelectric prostheses work by placing electrodes over the skin to pick up nerve signals that would ordinarily be sent by the brain to the limb. An algorithm then translates these signals, and sends instructions to motors within the electronic limb. Since the electrodes are applied to the skin surface, however, they will undoubtedly encounter countless issues in maintaining the fluid transferal of information back and forth between the brain and the limb.

Catlan said that his developments help “amputees to control an artificial limb, in much the same way as their own biological hand or arm, via the person’s own nerves and remaining muscles.”

Instead of using sockets to attach the prosthesis, the operation will use the Osseointegrated Prosthesis for the Rehabilitation of Amputees (OPRA), a method which employs bone-anchored prostheses attached via titanium screws.

A titanium implant acts as the bidirectional interface, transmitting signals from the electrodes, placed on nerves and muscles, to the limb. It is a truer replication of how the arm was designed to work, with information from existing nerves being transferred to the limb and to the implant, where algorithms can translate thought-controlled instructions into movement. It is, Catalan told Wired.co.uk, a “closed loop control” that moves us “one step further to providing natural control of the artificial limb”. Add to this the fact that every finger is motorised and can be individually controlled, and Catalan’s bold statement might just be accurate.

The first surgeries are to be carried out by January or February 2013. Catalan told Wired, “we want to leave the lab and become part of the patients’ everyday life. If the first operations this winter are successful, we will be the first research group in the world to make ‘thought-controlled prostheses’ a reality for patients to use in their daily activities, and not only inside research labs.”

[Source: Wired]