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Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

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Re: Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

#12

This is amazing. There is no direct connection to his brain, so he may not b controlling the arms by just 'thinking'. It looks like almost using smaller muscles to control the arms, but using the nerve connections themselves. Also, he controls one pivot per action - so he moves the shoulder, then the forearm, then the hand, then the fingers with rests between each step.

This is the one thing I didn't get: if it's mapped to nerves why can't he do two pivots at a time? Is it a limitation of the robotics?

It's mapped to the base of nerves. He doesn't have the entire nervous network that an arm usually has.

Re: Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

#13
post #10

Amazing that 15 years ago I was watching primates do these things and more with neural implants. Perfect instance where the idea is amazing and revolutionary but the reality is so hard it takes decades if not longer to accomplish.

The reality is if we dumped as much tax money on it as we dump on spaceships landing on comets, we'd be all done with this in 1 year and headlines like this would be old news.

Re: Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

#14
post #10

Amazing that 15 years ago I was watching primates do these things and more with neural implants. Perfect instance where the idea is amazing and revolutionary but the reality is so hard it takes decades if not longer to accomplish.

The reality is if we dumped as much tax money on it as we dump on spaceships landing on comets, we'd be all done with this in 1 year and headlines like this would be old news.

What would be the point of dumping tax dollars into amputee research?

We invest in space because we think it is worthwhile, and still mostly unprofitable (that's changing).

That is not the case with prosthetics. It makes sense to let the market decide how much to invest in this research acoording to the size of the amputee prosthetic market. It frees up the government to work I. Other things and gets rid of the HUGE inefficiencies when it comes to the government trying to accomplish anything.

Re: Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

#16
post #10

Amazing that 15 years ago I was watching primates do these things and more with neural implants. Perfect instance where the idea is amazing and revolutionary but the reality is so hard it takes decades if not longer to accomplish.

The reality is if we dumped as much tax money on it as we dump on spaceships landing on comets, we'd be all done with this in 1 year and headlines like this would be old news.

You're right - NASA gets way too much money! Almost 3% of what the defense budget is!

What the hell, they should split their budget with research for prosthetics - dying a cyborg on Earth is way better than visiting some rock in space. /s

Re: Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

#18

I am excited for these kinds of technology for non-amputee use too: https://www.thalmic.com/en/myo/

Received a myo yesterday. Pretty awesome hardware execution - aka it works consistently - but the "things" you can do out-of-the-box are fairly limited. I will dig into the SDK over the weekend.

Re: Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

#19
It must be incredibly hard to remember how to even use your arms 40 years after not having them. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I would expect that sooner or later the brain would start to rewrite the paths devoted to arm movement to something else. Looks like this guy made a ton of progress though. Very encouraging to see.

Re: Amputee controls prosthetic arms by thinking about them [video]

#20
post #10

Amazing that 15 years ago I was watching primates do these things and more with neural implants. Perfect instance where the idea is amazing and revolutionary but the reality is so hard it takes decades if not longer to accomplish.

The reality is if we dumped as much tax money on it as we dump on spaceships landing on comets, we'd be all done with this in 1 year and headlines like this would be old news.

Not true, real biological impediments that take time to overcome.
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