MIT's bionic leg upgrade leaves amputees walking like the wind

Researchers have shown a combination of special surgery and a bionic limb can enhance walking speed in some amputees by 40 percent, within the range of able-bodied individuals. MIT professor Hugh Herr – himself an amputee – worked with colleagues to develop a technique to build a neuroprosthetic interface during or after …

[Bebu]

Rather promising

Seems a lot more practical and vastly less invasive than Musk's Neuralink offering.

The linked article in J Nature Med.Today is rather technical. :)

For those who like me, after so many years, are a bit fuzzy about afferent and efferent they are here respectively: to the brain and from the brain (basically L. ad = to, ex = from (out of).)

From a quick read it seems the residual muscles on either side of joint have both sensors and stimulating electrodes surgically implanted.

These implanted sensors' output is ultimately fed into the system that controls the motion of the prosthesis.

The implanted electrodes stimulate the muscle with positional and velocity information, and other parameters ultimately derived from the prosthesis which the (neuroplastic) central nervous system will accept as feedback which will then modify the nerve pulses to the residual muscle thus closing feedback loop. (Extremely nonlinear I would imagine.)

I have used "sensor" and "electrode" but there could be strain gauges embedded into the muscle as well as miniaturized electromechanical devices to stretch the muscle fibres.

Given the growing number of amputees from recent conflicts as well as the steady flow from automoblie and other accidents this is surely welcome development.

[Mishak]

Seems a lot more practical and vastly less invasive than Musk's Neuralink offering

Aren't they different solutions to different problems though?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Seems a lot more practical and vastly less invasive than Musk's Neuralink offering

I wouldn't have thought so. They're the two halves of a feedback mechanism.

[Catkin]

Re: Seems a lot more practical and vastly less invasive than Musk's Neuralink offering

I would say so. Neuralink does not, as far as I'm aware, feed information back in in its current iteration and this system, while providing proprioception (great for more natural walking) would not be applicable to a paraplegic individual.

Both offer the potential of massive quality of life improvements without detracting from the other.

[Muscleguy]

Re: Rather promising

Muscles contain strain gauges in the form of muscle spindles. IF they can tap into that system then you would get normal feedback.

[Pascal Monett]

It is breathtaking to see what future we are preparing on the medical front

I am gobsmacked to see that we are finding ways to overcome handicap so efficiently.

Well done. This is what happens when you have intelligent people dedicated to actually solving problems and technology that provides novel means to new solutions.

Don't tell me that landing on the Moon was a waste of money. This is proof that it wasn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It is breathtaking to see what future we are preparing on the medical front

When NASA had astronauts landing on the Moon, or just spending a month or two orbiting the Earth, then NASA would collect the muscle contraction data as soon as the astronauts landed. Trying to monitor the results of the astronauts legs and feet "walking" without much gravity - until they landed.

[Version 1.0]

Lets start Animation Intelligence

Walking is muscle contraction and feedback, your muscles move the leg to maintain your balance as you walk and the sensation in your foot, leg and body, generate feedback to keep you balanced and moving. The proposed methods will be a good start but we need the limb movement to be adjusted based on how our body is reacting to each foot hopefully landing heel first, then moving our weight over the flat foot - and then the toes and leg muscles swinging our body over the foot forward to start swinging the foot ahead to land accurately ahead of the other foot for the next step while keeping us upright and not slipping over.

I've been helping data collection for Gait Analysis for years, so this MIT's work sounds like a way that could help a lot of injured and older people to start walking - and even help children with walking problems too.

[Muscleguy]

Re: Lets start Animation Intelligence

There’s more than proprioception from joints, tendons the muscle spindles, specialised muscle fibres innervated by afferent nerves feed back strain and twitch speed information to the nervous system.

[Watashi]

Extended warranty?

This sounds great, but let's hope these bits of kit come with a lifetime warranty and a commitment from governments to ensure hardware and software are supported if business fails to do so. Otherwise they'll end up just like these revolutionary eye implants:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_retinal_prosthesis

"In 2020, Second Sight stopped providing technical support for the Argus, as well as for the successor device, Argus II, and for the brain implant, Orion; an investigation by IEEE Spectrum revealed that users risk – and in some cases, have already experienced – a return to blindness."

[Luiz Abdala]

The research is a leg up to potential users. Or maybe two legs on the ground?

We are a step closer to the 6 million dollar man research, 40 years later. (Ok, I ran out of puns now.)

I wonder if we will take the Cyberpunk route or the Iron Man route, as in, surgery to implant inner prosthetics, or apply external ones that everybody can use.

[Muscleguy]

Re: The research is a leg up to potential users. Or maybe two legs on the ground?

With wearable exoskeletons I’m thinking ECG of the sensory & motor cortices or spinal column recording would do it or just pressure sensors on the inside of it so it knows you’re starting to do X.

[TangoDelta72]

Re: The research is a leg up to potential users. Or maybe two legs on the ground?

Well, time to read the Cobra series by Timothy Zahn (again). If you haven't read it, one of the plot devices is a prosthetic ankle which has a laser that shoots out of the heel. No, really, it's cooler than it sounds!

[Big_Boomer]

Re: The research is a leg up to potential users. Or maybe two legs on the ground?

The laser takes up the whole shin and fires through the heel. They also have smaller finger lasers. All of the Cobra upgrades are useless without the controlling "nano-computer" and some of the side effects of the surgery ain't so good. The later books did wander quite badly but the first 2 Trilogies are excellent.

[Michael Hoffmann]

Re: The research is a leg up to potential users. Or maybe two legs on the ground?

"We have the technology" - we now actually do, sans the exciting 80s soundtrack.

[Fred Flintstone]

Re: The research is a leg up to potential users. Or maybe two legs on the ground?

Better sound effects too :)

[TangoDelta72]

"Augmented" NOVA episode

I watched this episode when it came out. It describes a lot of his personal history and struggles, and why he went to MIT. The latter half of the show went into the patient experience, technical and medical aspects, and hurdles to overcome. That was in 2022, so I'm glad to hear that there's more progress in his work.

NOVA episode guide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nova_episodes#Season_49:_2022

MIT "Augmented" description:

https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/augmented-nova-pbs-episode-featuring-hugh-herr/

[ravenviz]

Does it come with that bionic sound effect too? That would rule.