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back to article Boffins refine mind-to-prosthetic link

Scientists in the US have developed a technique that could massively improve the control amputees have over their prosthetic limbs. The technique, known as targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR) allows a motorised prosthesis to respond directly to the brain's signals. The research has been led by Dr Todd Kuiken, a physiatrist at …

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  1. Anonymous John

    I think you want to go for a walk

    Shall we go to the park?

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  2. Ash
    Joke

    95% recognition rate...

    So, one out of every twenty times you go to flip someone the bird, you instead cock-punch yourself.

    I'll pass, thanks.

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  3. Steve
    Thumb Up

    Connect the nerves to chest muscles

    Why not connect the nerves to a microchip sensor and have the basis of a proper cybernetic limb. It seems like an odd halfway house to connect the nerves to existing muscle, then read the action in that existing muscle to then generate movement in the prosthesis.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think you might find

    that William S. Burroughs has a claim for prior art here.

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  5. Nexox Enigma

    Re: 95% recognition rate...

    What if you intended to cock-punch yourself and instead accidentally flipped off an innocent bystander? The possibilities are really quite endless.

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  6. Dion R
    Happy

    Bad luck if...

    One had a prosthetic arse, just think.....and shit yerself,

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Dion R

    Humm ... but isnt that what happens normally?

    You sit down, you think puuuuush, and out it plops!

    However, if you were attempting to talk out of your arse and you shat yourself, then yeah, I can see how that could be quite embarrasing!

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  8. Andrew

    Cybernetic Monkeys

    I'd have to say, I'm more interested the reserch that came out a few years ago hooking into the brain directly. Then it dosen't matter if the nerve endings still work (such as with a broken spine) and the results showed far more dexterity.

    And I would not mind my own army of cybernetic monkeys...

    I found a quick link regarding it but Im too lazy to look up anything more recent

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4262.html

    Let our new monkey overlords deal with the details

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  9. Dion R
    Boffin

    @ Anonymous Coward

    Thats a good summary of the process of taking a shit, however, Lets say, some poor bugger with his prosthetic sphincter (highly unlikely, i know, but for arguments sake) is out in public and he steps in dogshit, or even dodges the dogshit whatever, and he thinks to himself, "shit, i almost stepped in ..." but by then, the magic word has been thought of, and he's shat himself not once, but twice.......

    Wouldn't that shit ya...

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  10. JeffyPooh

    Eventually: mind-reading limbs

    When mind-reading limbs finally reach the market, you can be certain that there will be incidents of unintended breast-fondling.

    "Oh sorry. I was just imagining doing that. But I didn't actually intend to do it. I think my new arms require some firmware updates."

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  11. Mark

    @Steve

    They HAVE been trying it for a long time, but the neurons just don't like it and tend to shrink away from artificial attachments. Also, it's hard to attach them and keep them from being yanked out, and a bit of a complicated wiring job when each one of thousands of neurons is just a few microns across and mother nature forgot to colour code them so you don't know what each one does. Also, need a chip that can individually either detect chemical neurotransmitters, cos that what you get in neuronal synapses, or one that can detect the NA+/K+ ion charge differences caused by the wave of depolarisation in each stimulated neuonal axon. Tough one that. Also, could be frustrating when your battery goes flat during periods of intensive arm movement.

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