Mind Control Prosthetic Arm

Imagine a chance to have an arm again after going years without one. How amazing would it be to one day have no arm, and the next have a working arm again. For those who have lost an arm due to injuries or disease, there is the new mind-controlled prosthetic arms to make their lives much easier. Over 100,000 Americans are missing limbs wether from disease or injury. What was once a mere idea is now a reality. When a patient was asked to think of a command for their arm to follow, the robotic arm responded("Johns"). Mind-controlled prosthetic arms will benefit those without limbs, make prosthetics easier to use, and feel more natural and comfortable than current prosthetics provided. The surgery procedures of inserting a prosthetic arm with mind controlling features require several difficult steps and procedures. First, a sheet of film the size of a credit card is attached to the part of the brain controlling that arm with 128 electrodes made to detect commands for the arm. A thorough and complicated test is taken to make certain that the film is positioned precisely where the brain signals the arm to
They can pinch, open the hand and close it, rotate the wrist, and bend and move the arm ("First"). An accuracy test was taken on a patient to determine how well the arm would respond to the patient’s commands. The results came as 76% accuracy. The scientists found that when paired the pinky finger and the ring finger together, the accuracy bumped up from 76% to 88%. In the future, they plan to escalate the accuracy results as close to 100% as possible. Although we have fixed up some patients to have working and life-long prosthetics, there is still a ways away until we can be definite that they will work well for life. Mind-controlled prosthetics are becoming more and more natural through the years, making it much easier to use them as a natural