New Way to control Prosthetic Limbs

[BillTre]

Robotic limbs are often controlled by having electrode sensors on the limb stump pick up signals which are used to control the robotic limbs movements. This approach has had it limitations.
By replicating aspects of how natural legs work in the healing stump, prosthetic limb control can be improved (in rodents).
This story describes how linked agonist and antagonist muscle pairs are created in the stump which are then innervated by agonist-antagonist nerves. Because the muscles are linked together, this results in one muscle stretching as the other contracts, just as they would when your knee or elbow bends (stretching an antagonist muscle when the agonist muscle contracts).

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

This is really exciting news! It means that prosthetic limbs can be controlled more accurately and with more subtlety than has been possible before. It also suggests that people with robotic limbs could potentially have better control over their movements, which would be a great improvement.