Bionic Arm Reads Brain's Signals

Zarf writes "Dr. Todd A. Kuiken and the Doctors of the Rehabilitation Institue of Chicago have successfully used the nerve endings from an amputee's lost arm to drive a bionic replacement. Details are in this CNN story. Although this isn't new surgical work it is a clever and practical use of existing technologies which hasn't been done before. It offers the promise of other interesting applications as well such as hands-free wheelchair use or even hands-free mousing. The doctors hope that in time this technology will lead to other bionic replacement limbs as well."

Comments

Re:Impressive, but misleading post

[meldroc]

This feat's nifty because now, when the user thinks about closing his hand, the way a non-amputee would think about closing his natural hand, the bionic hand closes. You don't have to shrug your shoulders or anything like that, you use the artificial limb in the same way you use a natural limb.