Controlling Prosthetic Limbs with Electrode Arrays
From: Technology Review - 04/25/2011
By: Nidhi Subbaraman

A new nerve-cell-support design could give amputees better control over
prosthetic limbs.  

To design prosthetic limbs with motor control and a sense of touch,
researchers have been looking at ways to connect electrodes to nerve endings
on the arm or leg and then to translate signals from those nerves into
electrical instructions for moving the mechanical limb. However, severed
nerve cells on an amputated limb can only grow if a structure is present to
support them—much the way a trellis supports a growing vine. And they are
notoriously fussy about the shape and size of that structure. 

Ravi Bellamkonda's lab at Georgia Tech has designed a tubular support
scaffold with tiny channels that fit snugly around bundles of nerve cells. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37459/?a=f

Links:
David Martin
http://udel.edu/~milty

Ravi Bellamkonda
http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/groups/bellamkonda/people/ravi.html