DIY nerve-operated limb prosthesis in the near future?
So, I'm sure we've all seen the videos and articles, starting a few years back, about prosthetic arms able to be controlled with the mind. Of course, these are probably the best kind of prosthesis available, even if they're not quite as good as our default hardware currently. The only downside I can see is they're sometimes overly heavy (which will improve with time, assuming Moore isn't proved wrong any time soon) and their cost, which can be addressed in other ways.
Of course, as you probably guessed, I'd be interested in making something with the same functionality. My knowledge of the software and medical fields are quite limited, so I don't expect to meet with much success, but I figured I'd talk to you lot and see what stumbling blocks you'd expect me to run into first. Would modified needle electrodes be safe for long term usage? I haven't been able to find much on what kind of nerve-to-sensor interface the experimental varieties use, but conventional methods of sensing motor-neuron activity seem straightforward enough. I wouldn't expect a touch-sensitive model for quite a while, considering how much smaller/more sensitive/more widely spread sensory neurons are. Would be funny to see people implanting m31s into prosthetic fingertips, but probably not gonna happen any time soon.
So, any ideas? Have I missed a paper on a remarkably simple way to splice nerves and wires, or do you guys think other challenges would prove more immediately frustrating? I'd appreciate any advice/criticism of course
Of course, as you probably guessed, I'd be interested in making something with the same functionality. My knowledge of the software and medical fields are quite limited, so I don't expect to meet with much success, but I figured I'd talk to you lot and see what stumbling blocks you'd expect me to run into first. Would modified needle electrodes be safe for long term usage? I haven't been able to find much on what kind of nerve-to-sensor interface the experimental varieties use, but conventional methods of sensing motor-neuron activity seem straightforward enough. I wouldn't expect a touch-sensitive model for quite a while, considering how much smaller/more sensitive/more widely spread sensory neurons are. Would be funny to see people implanting m31s into prosthetic fingertips, but probably not gonna happen any time soon.
So, any ideas? Have I missed a paper on a remarkably simple way to splice nerves and wires, or do you guys think other challenges would prove more immediately frustrating? I'd appreciate any advice/criticism of course
Comments
I have never tried this but there are instructions to use an Arduino to read the nerve/muscle signals and control other things.
https://www.google.com/#q=muscle+sensor+arduino
https://www.google.com/#q=reading+nerve+signals+arduino
also try searching for myoelectric sensor