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Implanting a magnet

4lienattack

June 2016

edited June 2016

in Magnets

After reading some of the forum comments, I'm left wondering whether people have been going about this the wrong way. I've worked a few different jobs involving manual labor, gone to classes, and helped my family and others move. When you pick something up, whether it's made of wood, metal, glass, cardboard, or even the fabric strap of a backpack, your applying pressure on the muscle of the inside of your hands. Not a big deal, your supposed to do that, but people who implant a magnet into their finger tips have a different issue. You now have a hard bit of something that isn't supposed to be there, floating at some level between bone, muscle, nerves, and skin. Compressing it is likely to cause bruising, the collecting of one liquid or another, and from what people are saying in rejection section, rejection. I have no medical background, so don't know whether this is possible, but if your determined to use your fingertips, either grafting the magnet into the bone, or replacing it if such a thing is possible sounds like the better idea. If someone with a medical background sees a problem with this idea, please point it out. I'd rather not cause someone to amputate a finger because of a stupid idea on my part. If you want to put a magnet in your hand though, a better idea might be the meaty or webbed bit between your fingers and thumb. I think you might still be able to feel magnetic fields by doing this. Again, no clue so if this is wrong, tell me.

Comments

1. 

   ThomasEgi

   
   June 2016

   edited June 2016
   Both suggestions would zero your ability to feel magnetic fields. The reasons is in the way magnets behave to cause a sensation in first place.

   
   

   It all boils down to mechanoreceptor cells (the ones that pick up faintest vibrations of your tissue). For starters you need an body area with incredibly high density of such receptor cells. The only practical place where this is given are fingertips due to the fact that those cells pick up the vibration which are produced when your finger slides over surfaces. In combination with your fingerprint (the grove-pattern), even tiny bit uneven surfaces will create a vibration of the skin, picked up by the receptors. Moving away from the fingertip down to the base of the finger, or even the hand, the number of receptor cells drop drastically as they are not needed.

   
   

   Summing it up: only fingertips are an option for placing a magnet.

   
   

   Attaching the magnet to the bone may seem like an interesting idea but it is flawed. Reason for that is, the magnet's job is to be affected by a magnetic field and move itself and the surrounding tissue a tiny little bit so the receptor cells can pick up that motion and send it to your brain. If you attach the magnet to anything rigid/heavy, it'll no longer be able to move, thus not move the tissue around it, and no tissue-motion can be picked up anymore.

   
   

   So unfortunately, both of your ideas would fail from a biomechanical point of view.

   
   

   Nice ideas tho. Don't get discouraged, keep on spitting out new and interesting ideas. It's all about the one idea that can be made to work.
2. 

   BirdMachine

   
   June 2016
   Is bone conduction something that might be worth exploring in the near future? I know it's possible to hear through bone-conduction headphones and implants. But I've been wondering lately how much feedback one could feel from something closer to the bone. Say, near or on the sternum.
   
   A while back there was a device that you wore around your neck and it settled on your chest, and when you passed audio through it it would vibrate with the bass to try and create that live music deep 'thwump' feeling, for lack of a better scientific name. With a nearbone or onbone magnet and a powerful enough electromagnetic pulse, would it be possible to feel anything? Or perhaps something closer to the surface, like the collarbones? It's not working off of the same mechanoreceptors, but neither do the tragus magnets and those have some fun uses :)
   
3. 

   Benbeezy
   June 2016
   being fully bone mounted and rigid would stop the movement (as I found out with by BLE implant) But if you had a silicone coated magnet mounted the silicone would give it enough give to move just a little bit and if the magnet was big enough I could see getting a thump out of it as being reasonable as a data point. When using the bone conduction headphone you don't 'feel' much of your head being moved around, the reason those work is because ears are just very sensitive to tiny movements.
4. 

   Zerbula

   
   June 2016
   @thomasegi, what about Nerve Growth Factor? would it be possible to create sensitive areas in safer locations? this is an idea i've toyed with in my head, but again, lack of knowledge with NGF. :o

   
   
5. 

   scruffy
   June 2016
   When mine was implanted it wasn't in a great spot and I frequently bumped it or used that part of my finger to do things (typing was one). It has since moved more to the side and still takes a bump occasionally but not all that often. I have bruised it twice but its stayed put. Its not quite as sensitive as it was early on but still enough for what I use it for.