Man Fitted with Robot Arm Controlled by the Mind
May 13th, 2010It’s unfortunate that killer robots are the inescapable flipside of this kind of stuff.
Whether you love the machines, or dread them (or both), this is pretty remarkable.
Via: BBC:
Every morning Christian Kandlbauer wakes up, dresses himself, and gets in his car to drive to work.
This may sound mundane, but for the 21-year-old Austrian these are remarkable feats.
Doctors say he is the first person in the world to drive a car using a mind-controlled robotic limb.
Four years ago Christian lost both his arms after being electrocuted by 20,000 volts. Now he is able to control all of the joints in his left prosthetic arm by merely thinking about what he wants his arm to do.
He has a conventional prosthetic fitted on his right side.
Experts at the medical technology company, Otto Bock Healthcare, which developed the mind-controlled arm, say it is the first project of its kind in Europe.
On Wednesday, they will announce at an international conference in Leipzig, Germany, that the technology is ready to leave the laboratory and be put to everyday use.
“UK patients could benefit in the next few months,” says Dr Hubert Egger, head of the research and development project for the mind-controlled arm.
“Christian is the first patient in Europe where this surgery was done, and the first person in Europe with this mind-controlled prosthetic. In the future we hope to fit patients in the UK with prosthetics like this.”
Dr Egger’s team is publishing detailed surgical and technical guidelines for the mind controlled arm.
It involves a new technique known as targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), where nerves that once controlled a lost limb are used to control a prosthesis.
Christian was the “guinea pig” for the four-year research project.
Surgeons at Vienna General Hospital transplanted the nerves that previously controlled his healthy limb to the chest muscles in a six-hour operation.
The transplanted nerves allow electrical impulses from the brain to reach the muscles in the chest.
The muscles act like a booster, amplifying the signal to a level that can be picked up by electrodes on the surface of the chest.
These signals are interpreted by a micro-computer, and used to control a prosthesis which responds in real time to thoughts from his brain.
This allows him to control his prosthetic arm as if it were his real arm.
Now Christian can drive, hold down a job, and even grasp a glass of beer.
“I feel very happy,” he told the BBC in a telephone interview. “It is like my earlier arm – I feel that my arm is a part of my body.”
