Researchers Map Brain Activity to Improve Prosthetic Design
From: Medical Design Technology - 11/30/2017

High-tech prosthetics allow amputees to engage more fully in everyday life,
even to compete in sporting events. Researchers from the University of
Houston have demonstrated how brain activity is used to identify different
terrains - level ground and stairs, for example - a key step in developing
prosthetics that allow the user's prosthesis to automatically adjust to
changing ground conditions in real time.

Current state-of-the-art prosthetics rely on sensors that detect activity in
remaining muscles and translate that to movement, but they can't readily
adjust to changing terrain in real time. Incorporating brain activity into
the system would allow for that. The findings also have applications for
powered exoskeletons, which allow people with spinal cord injuries and other
disabilities to walk.

Using a wireless mobile brain-body imaging system, the work relied upon a
64-channel skullcap to track the brain activity of 10 able-bodied volunteers,
equally split between men and women, as they walked a course designed to take
them from level ground, up and down ramps and staircases. Each volunteer
completed an average of 20 trials.

In addition, the researchers used full-body motion capture technology to
record how the volunteer subjects moved and collected data about lower-limb
muscular activity.

The next step will be to translate the discovery to a high-tech prosthetic
leg that can automatically adjust to different terrains through a
brain-machine interface. 

Read the entire article at:
https://www.mdtmag.com/news/2017/11/researchers-map-brain-activity-improve-prosthetic-design
https://www.egr.uh.edu/news/201711/researchers-map-brain-activity-improve-prosthetic-design (with video 1:15)

Links:
Electrocortical correlates of human level-ground, slope, and stair walking
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0188500

Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal
http://www.ece.uh.edu/faculty/contreras-vidal

Real-time Adjusting Prosthetic Moves Closer with Brain-Body Imaging
http://www.rehabpub.com/2017/12/prosthetic-design-improvement-via-brain-mapping

Related:
Use of Brain-Computer Interface, Virtual Avatar Could Help People with Gait
  Disabilities
https://www.ecnmag.com/news/2017/08/use-brain-computer-interface-virtual-avatar-could-help-people-gait-disabilities
https://www.ecnmag.com/news/2017/08/use-brain-computer-interface-virtual-avatar-could-help-people-gait-disabilities

Not related:
Exoskeleton Gives Paraplegics Power to Walk
https://www.mdtmag.com/article/2016/09/exoskeleton-gives-paraplegics-power-walk