Scientific American 50: Making Them Whole
Artificial limbs and a prosthetic arm create a path to better bionics
From: Scientific American - 12/16/2007
By: George Musser

Research on prosthetics takes its greatest strides during or just after
wartime, and the past several years have sadly been no exception. Todd A.
Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and his team have pioneered
"targeted reinnervation", which jacks an artificial arm into the nervous
system. They transplant nerves from the shoulder of a lost arm to a patch on
the chest. In trying to move the arm, the person causes chest muscles to
flex, which electrodes pick up and transmit to the prosthesis. The
researchers have begun to experiment with two-way connections, relaying
signals from sensors on the arm to sensory nerves. 

Details about the prosthetic arm by Segway inventor Dean Kamen of DEKA
Research & Development Corporation are limited to a YouTube video, but it is
jaw-dropping. In a demonstration that looks like a scene from Bionic Woman,
an engineer wearing a prototype arm grasps a water bottle, picks up a pen and
scratches his nose. One can only hope that, unlike the Segway, it will be
priced at a level affordable to all. 

From:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sciam-50-making-them-whol

Todd Kuiken
http://www.smpp.northwestern.edu/Kuiken.htm
http://www.ric.org/aboutus/people/doctors/results.aspx?doctorID=43
http://www.ric.org/search/kuiken.php

Building the Bionic Man  
http://www.poptech.com/kuiken/

Todd Kuiken and Jesse Sullivan
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail763.html

Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs Lab
http://www.smpp.northwestern.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=76

New Technique Allows 'Feeling' in Artificial Arm
http://ww3.komotv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6026896
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=79282

Photo of Jesse Sullivan, Claudia Mitchell, and Todd Kuiken
http://www.wfaa.com/perl/common/slideshow/sspop.pl?recid=1824&nextimage=1


DEKA YouTube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hz Rja9eunY

DEKA's prosthetic arm
http://www.michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2007/08/darpatech-2007.html

DARPA Prosthetics Programs Seek Natural Upper Limb
http://www.neurotechreports.com/pages/darpaprosthetics.html

Army’s Robotic Prosthetic Arm Demo’d
http://www.neurotechreports.com/pages/darpaprosthetics.html

DEKA Research and Development Corp.
http://www.dekaresearch.com/

Inventor seeks ways to make lives whole
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/10/07/inventor_seeks_ways_to_make_lives_whole/