A man with an amputated arm has been given a bionic hand in a surgical breakthrough in Sweden. A study published in Science Translational Medicine on July 12 shows how the patient can now control the fingers of the hand through the remaining limb with the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Bionic hands are often linked to remnants of muscles in the residual limb, meaning the patient has a degree of control over its movement. However, for people with amputations above the elbow, for example, there is a lack of available muscles which means the limb cannot be linked to a robotic joint.
But now research led by Professor Max Ortiz Catalan, founding director of the Center for Bionics and Pain Research (CBPR) in Sweden, has found that there is an alternative.
Researchers reconfigured the residual limb of an unnamed patient, and by using skeletal implants and sensors to connect a prosthetic limb electrically, and rewiring and redistributing the peripheral nerves, they found it can access more information that allows it to move much more.
"In this work we showed that it is possible to use a combination of surgical procedures that when integrated with implanted electrodes allow a person to have intuitive and reliable control over more robotic joints," Ortiz Catalan told Newsweek.
"In other words, we showed that the nerves severed by the amputation can be split and redistributed to connect with muscles available in the residual limb, as well as transplanted from another part of the body. This distributed and concurrent reinnervation of different muscle targets create sources of information that the 'brain' of the prosthesis can use to know what it supposed to do. The 'brain' of the prosthesis consists of microcontrollers running signal processing and A.I. algorithms."
The study in the article presents how these transferred nerves connect to the "hosting muscles." After researchers learned how to connect them, they were attached to the prosthetic limb. This allowed the patient to move every finger in the prosthetic hand with significantly more dexterity.
The surgery performed by Dr. Paolo Sass, involving neuromuscular reconstruction and transplant of the limb, took place at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, in Gothenburg, Sweden.
"The incredible journey we have undertaken together with the bionic engineers at CBPR has allowed us to combine new microsurgical techniques with sophisticated implanted electrodes that provide single-finger control of a prosthetic arm as well as sensory feedback. Patients who have suffered from an arm amputation might now see a brighter future," Sassu said in a press release. The surgeon is presently working at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli in Italy.
The new findings and the successful procedure should help provide a higher level of functionality for amputees in the future.
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Update 7/17/23, 10:52 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include quotes from Max Ortiz Catalan.
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