'Bionic' Arm Brings Back Sense of Touch
From: Chicago Tribune - 06/23/2005
By: Kelly Kennedy

Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago director Todd Kuiken has invented a
prosthetic arm capable of giving its wearers the sense of feel. The device
has been tested on Jesse Sullivan, a former lineman for a power company who
lost his arms after grabbing a live high-tension wire. By pulling out the
four main nerves used to connect the arms and fastening them just under the
skin on the chest, Kuiken was able to recreate the sensation of feeling in
the mechanical hand. The prosthesis has a computer in the forearm wired to
the hand and a "plunger" device on his chest. The hand sends signals to the
plunger through the wires, thus pushing the skin and simulating the nerves in
Sullivan's chest to simulate sensation in the hand. If one of the mechanical
hand's fingers is touched, Sullivan can feel it and identify which finger it
was. He can even sense hot and cold and, with the incorporation of six
motors, can put on his hat in one movement just by thinking about it. The new
arm is still in the experimental stage of development, but Kuiken expects to
have Sullivan use it by the end of the year. It has cost about $100,000 to
make in parts alone. The Rehabilitation Institute has received a grant from
the National Institutes of Health to fit a woman veteran with a prosthetic
arm. It was also awarded $5 million from the Searle Funds at the Chicago
Community Trust to establish the Searle Program for Neurological Restoration.
Institute researchers expect to help patients control wheelchairs though
brain/computer interaction and to communicate by typing messages with
thought. Kuiken wants to develop a prosthetic leg that would allow amputees
to "feel" when they take steps. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0506230208jun23,1,7950510.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

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Prosthetic arm boasts sense of touch

What was once just fiction is becoming reality. Artificial limbs are getting
closer to the real thing. At the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
Wednesday, the latest marriage between man and metal was unveiled.
Researchers say they have the first person in history to ever have felt with
his prosthetic hand.  

Jesse Sullivan does the thinking, and his new bionic arm follows his command.
It literally responds to his thoughts the way a natural arm would. This is
the latest in what's known as a myoelectric prosthesis.  

"We're taking the nerves that used to go to his arm and transferring then to
some fresh skin and muscle so his brain doesn't know that this isn't his arm
he feel," said Dr. Todd Kuiken, amputee services, Rehabilitation Institute of
Chicago. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.worldhealth.net/p/prosthetic-arm-boasts-sense-of-touch-2005-06-23.html

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Links:

Introducing Jesse Sullivan, the World's First "Bionic Man"
http://www.ric.org/bionic/index.php

Todd A. Kuiken, MD, PhD
http://www.ric.org/search/kuiken.php

Brain waves drive man's bionic arm
http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/09/25/bionic.arm/index.html

`Bionic' arm brings back sense of touch
http://www.smpp.northwestern.edu/ChicagoTribuneBionicArmarticle.pdf

The Body Electric: Recent Developments in Bionic Technology - Upper Extremities
http://www.amputee-coalition.org/inmotion/may_jun_04/body_electric.html