ApplySci - Deep Tech Health + Neurotech
Hebrew University professor Amir Amedi has used an augmented reality device to allow the blind to “see” by converting images to complex sounds. The user is able to form a mental image of objects, including people, in front of them.
The cerebral cortex is activated when sighted people see an outline of the human body. The extrastriate area responds more strongly to human body images than it does to other objects. Blindness stops the usual flow of information from the eyes to this part of the brain, and people who’ve been blind since birth have never seen a human form. Their brains must change as they they learn to perceive body shapes using sound.
Ella Striem-Amit and Amir Amedi scanned the brains of seven congenitally blind people who’d trained for an average of 73 hours on the augmented reality system. The surprising result was that the visual cortex was activated by the auditory stimuli. Participants classified three different types of objects: people, everyday objects, and textured patterns.
Professor Amedi’s lab does groundbreaking research on perception and multisensory relation, sensory substitution approaches and dynamics of brain processes. Among other innovations, they are now experimenting with an ultrasound stick that measures distances from objects, providing auditory indications.
Logbar‘s sensor ring recognizes finger gestures and controls devices. “Ring” allows the wearer to write text messages by drawing in the air, make mobile payments, or control lights or a television. It is being tested for use with the Pebble watch, quadcopter drones and Google Glass.
It can be programmed to respond to original shape gesture commands, which could be useful for the disabled or visually impaired.
Wearers can receive vibrating alerts or view LED pinpoints near the button port, performing up to 1,000 gestures before its battery must be recharged.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl404816m
Case Western‘s Michael Bruckman and colleagues have developed a multifunctional nanoparticle that pinpoints blood vessel plaques caused by atherosclerosis using MRI. The goal is to create a non-invasive method of identifying heart attack and stroke causing plaques vulnerable to rupture, in time for treatment.
Currently doctors can only identify narrowing blood vessels caused by plaque accumulation via incision and the insertion of a catheter inside a blood vessel in the arm, groin or neck. The catheter emits a dye that enables X-rays to show the narrowing.
The researchers found that a nanoparticle built from a rod-shaped virus, commonly found on tobacco, locates and illuminates plaque in arteries more effectively, with a fraction of the dye. The tailored nanoparticles target plaque biomarkers, opening the possibility that particles can be programmed to identify vulnerable plaques from stable. Untargeted dyes alone cannot accomplish this.
http://www.multivu.com/mnr/65112-alfred-mann-foundation-u-s-marine-subject-fda-study-for-imes-system
The Alfred Mann Foundation‘s first subject, a U.S. Marine, will receive its IMES System (implantable myoelectric sensor). The experimental system could be the first minimally invasive, intuitive, multi-channel control system for prosthetics, intended for long term use. It is being studied under the Investigational Device Exemption regulations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. AMF’s ongoing trial with injured veterans at the Walter Reed National Medical Military Center anticipates subjects intuitively operating three prosthetic movements simultaneously: opening and closing the hand, rotating the wrist, and moving the thumb.
While the IMES system focuses on muscle activation, it is our opinion that the future of prosthetics will include a combination of brain (possibly non-invasive) and muscle interpretation.
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/NR/C3NR05496A#!divAbstract
North Carolina State University researchers have developed a thumb joint mounted, multifunctional sensor using silver nanowires that measures strain, pressure, human touch and bioelectronic signals. With potential biomedical, military and athletic applications, the sensor can be used for prosthetics, robotic systems and flexible touch panels.
“The technology is based on either physical deformation or “fringing” electric field changes. The latter is very similar to the mechanism used in smartphone touch screens, but the sensors we’ve developed are stretchable and can be mounted on a variety of curvilinear surfaces such as human skin” according to NC State’s Shanshan Yao.
“These sensors could be used to help develop prosthetics that respond to a user’s movement and provide feedback when in use,” said Professor Yong Zhu. “They could also be used to create robotics that can ‘feel’ their environment, or the sensors could be incorporated into clothing to track motion or monitor an individual’s physical health.”
Duke Professor Miguel Nicolelis‘s brain controlled exoskeleton technology may enable a paraplegic teen to kick off the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The plan is for the teenager to walk onto the field, cock back a foot, and swing at a soccer ball, using a mechanical exoskeleton controlled by his/her brain.
Motorized metal braces tested on monkeys will support and bend the kicker’s legs. The braces will be stabilized by gyroscopes and powered by a battery carried by the kicker in a backpack. Sensors will relay a feeling of pressure when each foot touches the ground. Months of training on a virtual-reality simulator will have prepared the teenager to do this using a device that translates thoughts into actions.
http://hub.jhu.edu/2013/01/02/prosthetic-arm-60-minutes
The number of researchers developing advanced prosthetics, particularly thought controlled limbs, is increasing rapidly. This can significantly impact the lives of many. In Johns Hopkins Universty’s Applied Physics Lab, a motorized arm with a five fingered hand that operates much like human hand is nearing completion.
Professor Michael McLoughlin and trauma surgeon Albert Chi have developed a technique known as targeted innervations—in which nerves can be rerouted through spare muscle, allowing amputees to operate motorized prosthetics using motor commands. In a recent surgery, Dr. Chi successfully combined this technique with the aforementioned prosthetic.
“The body is amazing in terms of its will to return to normal function,” Chi says. “When you have a missing limb, all the information is there, but the body has no way to get it out. So we rerouted the pathway for that information so that it can be expressed.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/522086/an-artificial-hand-with-real-feelings/
Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University researchers have developed an interface that can convey a sense of touch from 20 spots on a prosthetic hand. It directly stimulates nerve bundles, known as peripheral nerves, in the arms of patients. Two people have been fitted with the interface to date. The implants continue to work after 18 months, which is notable because electrical interfaces to nerve tissue can gradually degrade in performance.
According to Case Western Professor Dustin Miller, who is leadning the project: “The work opens up the possibility that prosthetic limbs could one day provide enduring and nuanced feedback to humans.”
http://www.dw.de/standing-again-with-nerve-controlled-robotics/a-17280419
Professor Thomas Schildhauer leads a team at Bergmannsheil University Clinic’s “Center for Neuro-Robotic Mobility Training” that uses nerve impulse sensors to help patients walk again. A robotic exoskeleton with sensors affixed to the hips and legs gives paraplegics, Parkinson’s and stroke patients a sense of stability during ambulatory exercises. The robot suit contains numerous sensors that recognize nerve impulses as they flash across the skin. Via a small motor, the suit converts those impulses into motion.
“The brain sends a signal out that typically arrives at the muscle via nerve systems,” said Schildhauer. For patients capable of some movement, “Small impulses can still be discovered in the muscles. And they can be measured and recorded on the skin. That signal is then amplified in the robot and moves the motors of the exoskeleton.”
Such robot-supported training, Schildhauer says, “seems to build up and expand the remaining muscle functions, and the brain structures, too, that haven’t been used for a long time.” Movement patterns, he added, are then re-trained. “It seems to cause the patient to fall back into many of the old, usual cycles of movement, and results in them being able to walk again.”
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/213/213ra166
Maysam Ghovanloo of Georgia Tech and Anne Laumann of Northwestern have developed a tongue piercing based magnet to operate a wheelchair.
The device is a small magnetic barbell which creates a magnetic field in the mouth. When users flick their tongues, it alters that field. The change is picked up by four small sensors on a headset with twin extensions curving around the cheeks, and relayed wirelessly to a smartphone, computer or iPod. The software translates the signals and sends them to a powered wheelchair or computer.
The system was tested on 11 tetraplegia patients from rehabilitation centers in Chicago and Atlanta and 23 able volunteers who already wore tongue jewelry.
After 30 minutes of training, everyone was able to move a computer cursor, clicking on targets on a laptop screen, playing video games and dialing phone numbers. Accuracy and speed improved with practice, even though subjects used the system only one day a week. After six weeks the tetraplegics were, on average, three times faster with the tongue system than with sip-and-puff, which six of the 11 had been using. It was equally accurate.
Using only tongue movements, the volunteers also navigated a powered wheelchair through a 50-meter-long course with 13 turns, 24 obstacles and occasional alarms signaling “Stop! Emergency!” Here, too, on average the 11 tetraplegics drove the course three times faster with the tongue system than with sip-and-puff, and just as accurately.
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/210/210ra154.short?rss=1
Duke’s Miguel Nicolelis continues to advance brain machine interface, and in his latest experiment, monkeys have learned to control the movement of both arms on an avatar using their brain activity.
The findings advance efforts to develop bilateral movement in brain-controlled prosthetic devices for severely paralyzed patients. Until now brain-machine interfaces could
only control a single prosthetic limb.
http://www.copa2014.gov.br/en/noticia/brazilian-neuroscientist-miguel-nicolelis-unveil-walk-again-project-fifa-world-cup-brazil