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Immaculate prosthetic limb concept makes combines fun again, discusses the invention of the Immaculate prosthetic limbs. A jewelry designer, Hans Alexander Huseklepp, stylized the Immaculate artificial limb to appear non-human like to avoid the uneasiness of the Uncanny Valley phenomenon with artificial limbs.

Practice Makes Perfect: Learning Mind Control of Prosthetics, discusses the study of using monkeys' brains to map neural processors for movement of their limbs. Sensors are embedded into the brain and a map is made based upon the electrical activity of neurons as animals are completing motor tasks. The application of this technology would benefit humans with prosthetics that would allow for fluid effortless control of their limbs.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have successfully implanted a device in a monkey, giving it control to move a mechanical arm with its brain. This technology could assist disabled people and help them to live a normal life. Oscar Pistorius uses carbon fiber-composite legs and is one of the fastest athletes in the world. He wanted to participate in the Beijing Olympics but was rejected because the bionic prosthetics apparently gave him an advantage over normal athletes. This poses one ethical issue if bionics become mainstream. People might decide to get rid of their human legs and replace them with these for an advantage.

It is called SmartHand and uses myoelectrial signals in the form of electrodes to move the motors in the prosthetic hand. The SmartHand is unique because of the sensory feedback the amputee is receiving. There are sensors on each finger that communicate with the muscles in the forearm which stimulate the brain to move the fingers of the prosthetic hand. The article discusses that the ultimate goal of SmartHand is to attach a neural network connection directly to the artificial hand through sensors.

A group of researchers at the University of Leicester are looking into ways to improve prosthetics and how the brain controls them. The study is led by a combined effort between Dr.TomMathesonandProfessorRodrigoQuianQuiroga,aProfessorofBioengineering. The team received £800,000 in funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). They are tasked with researching the brain and studying sensory-motor control of the limbs. They will be studying the nerve activity in locusts. The team is hopeful that their research will help them to better understand medical disorders that prevent limb movements. They hope that this will help develop better prosthetics and improve the quality of life of people. The study was posted on the University of Leicester website (http://www.le.ac.uk).

Fluidhand is made of hydraulics that allows the wearer to move each finger independently. The prosthetic hand has flexible joints of the fingers and sensors in the palm and fingertips that communicate with the nerves in the stump. This allows for amputee to feel how strong to grip items and provides more natural movements similar to a real hand.

The ProDigits is a bionic fingers prosthetic developed by Touch Bionics out of Livingston, West Lothian. The device fits over the palm of a person's hand where loss fingers are.

"A portable, plugless, brain-to-computer interface using electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes strapped to the scalp has been developed by a team in the US. The device may allow paraplegics and others who have lost control of their limbs to control prosthetic devices and other equipment using their thoughts alone."

Researchers have successfully reconstructed 3-D hand motions from brain signals recorded in a non-invasive way, according to a study in the March 3 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. This finding uses a technique that may open new doors for portable brain-computer interface systems that can be an advantage for people with disabilities or paralysis.

Medical products company Second Sight developed an optical prosthetic, the Argus II, to be used for those who loss their vision due to injuries or diseases. It's a wireless communication system that's implanted into the eye that will capture images and transmit it to the brain. Second Sight has received funding from the U.S federal government.

The article is about a new device, invented by a team of top European Union researchers at the Tel Aviv University, called the SmartHand. The purpose of the SmartHand is to function as a replacement hand, in the event an individual were to lose their hand. The Hand functions by wiring itself into the nerve endings of the patient. The first human subject to try the Smart Hand, Robin af Ekenstam of Sweden, comments that he can 'feel' his fingers, hinting that it feels somewhat natural. Some of the applications of the device can allow the user to eat by themselves as well as write with that hand. A challenge that the scientists will commit to now is to improve control between the brain and the hand, as well as give it artificial skin to hide the bionic look. The project is funded by the E.U. Sixth Framework.

What's being study in this article are amputees having the capability to control a robotic arm by rearranging the nerves where the lost limb was. The patients were capable of mimicking hand movements, motions, and picking up different items like a glass, cracker, and a checker rolling on a table. The results were described in Journal of the American Medical Association.