Jesse Sullivan: The “bionic” man

The merging of man and machine: 

The Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs (NECAL)…uses nerve-muscle grafts in amputees to gain added control signals for an artificial arm. Doctors take nerves that used to go to the arm and move those nerves onto chest muscles. The nerves grow into the chest muscles, so when the patient thinks “close hand,” a portion of his chest muscle contracts and electrodes that detect this muscle activity tell the computerized arm when to close the hand. Thus, the patient thinks “close hand” and his artificial hand closes.

(from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, via Slashdot.)

Update: Claudia Mitchell is the second person to have a ’bionic arm’ fitted.

                                  

                                     

(via Gizmag, which has an image gallery and PowerPoint slides).