New Technique Allows 'Feeling' in Artificial Arm

This project, which is reported in the Feb. 3 issue ofThe Lancet, was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

"We hope to be doing the procedure in our servicemen and women this year," Kuiken said. In addition, his team is expanding its research to see how they can adapt the technique to legs.

One expert thinks that the new technique is a major accomplishment in making better prosthetic limbs.

"This is an important step in more intuitive control systems for prosthetic limbs," said Dr. Leigh R Hochberg, a neuroscience investigator at Brown University and the author of an accompanying editorial in the journal.

This technique will cut the training time and increase the control, Hochberg added. "Using this, or other techniques, much more natural control of prosthetic limbs might be possible," he said.

The technique, combined with newer limbs, may be an advance in prosthetic limbs in general, he added. "As engineers continue to create better, lighter prosthetic limbs, there will be better ways to control that limb," Hochberg said.

More information

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs can tell you more about artificial limbs.

SOURCES: Todd Kuiken, M.D., Ph.D., director, Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago; Leigh R. Hochberg, M.D., Ph.D., investigator in neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience and Brain Science Program, Brown University, Providence, R.I.; Feb. 3, 2007,The Lancet