Artificial limb is not a strange things in our today’s life. Oscar Pistorius has broken the 100 meters world record by using the artificial limb. Although many disabled can walk or live as an ordinary being. They can not feel they have the arm or leg. “Artificial skin created in a lab can “feel” similar to the way a fingertip senses pressure, and could one day let people feel sensation in their prosthetic limbs” from a report of Livescience. This will be a great news of technology for the disabled who are using artificial limb.
The researcher use the channelrhodopsin to make a test on the mouse. Finally, they this is a great kind of protein that can make the mouse to feel the touch. This protein can connect the people with the electric devices. The researcher said “We actually did connect [the sensors] to a robotic hand and a computer”. So I think the disabled can also check the condition of their artificial limb on the cell phone or computers. It will work like the vehicle computer. We can check if the artificial limb works well or not much more easily.
The new technology can be also used on the robots technology. For the bionic robots, the researcher can make the robot have a real-man skin. When we touch the robot, the robot will feel that someone has touched it. It sounds great.
For more information about the artificial skin, http://www.livescience.com/52693-artificial-skin-creates-sensation.html
This was a very fascinating article. It will be interesting to see how this progresses in the future. With different technologies being developed to replace and replicate limbs, maybe there will be one technology that will overtake the others. How that will happen, either because one costs less or creates a more natural experience or some other factors will be interesting to see.
The medical field, I believe, is making huge strides in technological growth. This blog post reminds me of the Baltimore boy Zion Harvey who recently became the first pediatric recipient of a hand transplant. If this technology to create artificial skin that the person can actually feel it can potential change people’s lives incredibly. I especially think of the benefit for veterans who have lost limbs during combat. Many injured veterans use prosthetics but if this new technology can help them actually sense and feel their prosthetic it would be an incredible advancement for the medical field. I was interested in the article so I read more about it and found it fascinating that researchers were able to create this sensation through electric pulses. However, I wonder how efficient this sensation feels and does it lose its ability over time as the rubber skin goes through wear and tear?
If this is something that actually is able to happen that would be incredible. Think or all the war vets and victims of accidents that would benefit from being able to feel a little bit normal again. I’m wondering if new technology like this would be able to help those who experience phantom limb syndrome. Maybe by being able to creating feeling in prosthetic limbs, the pain of phantom limb would easily subside or not occur in the first place. This would be a medical and technological breakthrough for those who’s lives have been hardened by having to have a prosthetic limb. Having feeling would also allow the emotional trauma or losing limb to be a little easier because patients would have some semblance to a normal limb.
In conjunction with the current rise in 3d printing of prosthetics this technology could have incredible impacts on our world. Individuals around the world who have either lost limbs due to accidents or were born without them could be looking at a drastic change in quality of life. This especially applies as we are able to more efficiently produce and employ these technologies. I found the use of optogenetics involved in this research to be a very intriguing way to conquer the limiting frequency sensitivity of electrical signals to the brain. It will be interesting to see if scientists are able to create synthetic skins that mimic other types of perception and whether or not they will be able to incorporate all of these technologies into one, congruent, artificial skin. If they are able to accomplish such a feat it could be an incredible contribution to expanding the human lifespan.
I think this is an amazing progression in technology. Prosthetic limbs that has artificial senses to mimic real ones? Some of the questions that came to mind originally though were: How do they maintain it/keep it sanitized if there is artificial skin? Does that get in the way of mobility? Also, is it expensive/worth using prosthetics with senses vs. non- sense? Either way, it is still impactful. Prosthetics are meant to improve mobility and the ability to manage daily activities, as well as provide the means to stay independent. This not only helps them physically, but emotionally as well. So just imagine gaining your senses back, how much that impacts your overall well being! Touch has a very powerful impact in creating intimacy and has an effect on memory. If someone were to gain their senses back it could alter many parts of their lives. Overall, I think this is a great project.
I read about this a little bit ago, absolutely amazing. Hopefully one day these technologies coupled with prosthesis will allow those destroyed by war to move back to the lives they had before the tragedy.