SACRAMENTO: Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have developed a brain-controlled prosthetic arm that can perform fine motor movements well enough to drinking beer without spilling it.
Mind-controlled prosthetic limbs are nothing new, but they tend to be rather jerky in their movement, which severely limits what people can do with them. This is because most tap into the brain’s motor cortex – the part of the noggin used to direct physical actions.
The CalTech professors took a different approach, relying not just on the motor cortex but also two implants consisting of 96 electrodes apiece: these implants are attached to the brain’s posterior parietal cortex (PPC), which plans physical movement rather than performing it.
“The PPC is earlier in the pathway, so signals there are more related to movement planning: what you actually intend to do rather than the details of the movement execution,” said Richard Andersen, the James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience at CalTech. “We hoped that the signals from the PPC would be easier for the patients to use, ultimately making the movement process more intuitive.”
