their walking.
Figure 3.1. WalkAide neuroprosthetic stimulator, which corrects a condition known as drop foot. The stimulator (
A
) activates the common peroneal nerve, which causes activity in the muscles that lift the foot (
B
). Images courtesy Innovative Neurotronics.
The WalkAide is an example, then, of a neuroprosthetic. It represents a medical device that helps improve (or replace in some cases) bodily function that has been lost due to accident or disease. Otherkinds of neuroprosthetics include stimulators for bladder and bowel control, deep brain stimulation (we will come back to this later on in this bookâso stay tuned), and cochlear prosthetics. Usually neuroprosthetics require insertion and implantation of electrodes into the body near the nerve or muscles that are targeted. But, the WalkAide is an example of a neuroprosthetic that doesnât need any implantation.
Cochlear prosthetics to improve hearing are the most commonly applied and utilized neuroprosthetics. They represent an instructive example of how continuing evolution in the fields of biomedical engineering and neuroscience from the 1950s to now have dramatically improved neuroprosthetic devices. Originally cochlear implants were very large and had external pieces fixed to the body that were wired to parts implanted into the inner ear. Now they are small directly implanted devices. This really nicely parallels the concept of the cardiac pacemaker and defibrillators. We will discuss this in chapter 7 when I put a new twist on Iron Manâs origin story!
Another interesting example of this kind of FES is a neuroprosthetic for improving hand function developed by Arthur Prochazka (coincidentally also at the University of Alberta). This âbionic gloveâ helps people who have problems moving the wrist and hand due to a stroke or spinal cord injury. As long as the person has some ability to move the wrist, the glove can help stimulate the muscles in the forearm that control grip. Sensors detect wrist angle and then trigger small stimulators to electrically activate the flexor muscles of the forearm. Imagine picking up a bottle of water. As you reach out and pick it up you first open your hand, make contact with the bottle, then close your hand, and lift it up. If you had partial paralysis of your arm and hand this would be difficult, if not impossible, to do. With the bionic glove, the user reaches out and gets the hand around the bottle. But because she cannot contract the flexor muscles, she extends the wrist a bit more. This signal triggers the glove to flex the fingers and the grip is made. Then the bottle can be picked up and used. In this simple device, three different muscle groups are activated with electrical stimulation.
So far our examples have had to do with neuroprosthetics that detect signals related to a residual movement that someone can make (like a bit of a walking movement, a bit of a wrist movement). Then the devices use that signal to trigger a stimulator to activate muscles that cannot get the normal activation from the nervous system. It is important to understand how these types of devices function to getcloser to appreciating how the Iron Man suit could actually work. For starters, the suit would have sensors detecting nervous system commands from nerve or muscle as well as commands from residual movement. The suit then would amplify the normal movement. However, it wouldnât do so by stimulating the muscles like in FES. Instead the trigger signals would drive the motors controlling the joints in the Iron Man robotic suit. Above we were talking about restoring function in a damaged nervous system with FES and neuroprosthetics. In that way the neuroprosthetic helps âbridgeâ the problems in the nervous system to restore some movement ability. This is what Tony will need to operate the NTU-150 and already exists in the form of the Cyberdyne Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) wearable robot suit.
HAL is a
Figure 3.1. WalkAide neuroprosthetic stimulator, which corrects a condition known as drop foot. The stimulator (
A
) activates the common peroneal nerve, which causes activity in the muscles that lift the foot (
B
). Images courtesy Innovative Neurotronics.
The WalkAide is an example, then, of a neuroprosthetic. It represents a medical device that helps improve (or replace in some cases) bodily function that has been lost due to accident or disease. Otherkinds of neuroprosthetics include stimulators for bladder and bowel control, deep brain stimulation (we will come back to this later on in this bookâso stay tuned), and cochlear prosthetics. Usually neuroprosthetics require insertion and implantation of electrodes into the body near the nerve or muscles that are targeted. But, the WalkAide is an example of a neuroprosthetic that doesnât need any implantation.
Cochlear prosthetics to improve hearing are the most commonly applied and utilized neuroprosthetics. They represent an instructive example of how continuing evolution in the fields of biomedical engineering and neuroscience from the 1950s to now have dramatically improved neuroprosthetic devices. Originally cochlear implants were very large and had external pieces fixed to the body that were wired to parts implanted into the inner ear. Now they are small directly implanted devices. This really nicely parallels the concept of the cardiac pacemaker and defibrillators. We will discuss this in chapter 7 when I put a new twist on Iron Manâs origin story!
Another interesting example of this kind of FES is a neuroprosthetic for improving hand function developed by Arthur Prochazka (coincidentally also at the University of Alberta). This âbionic gloveâ helps people who have problems moving the wrist and hand due to a stroke or spinal cord injury. As long as the person has some ability to move the wrist, the glove can help stimulate the muscles in the forearm that control grip. Sensors detect wrist angle and then trigger small stimulators to electrically activate the flexor muscles of the forearm. Imagine picking up a bottle of water. As you reach out and pick it up you first open your hand, make contact with the bottle, then close your hand, and lift it up. If you had partial paralysis of your arm and hand this would be difficult, if not impossible, to do. With the bionic glove, the user reaches out and gets the hand around the bottle. But because she cannot contract the flexor muscles, she extends the wrist a bit more. This signal triggers the glove to flex the fingers and the grip is made. Then the bottle can be picked up and used. In this simple device, three different muscle groups are activated with electrical stimulation.
So far our examples have had to do with neuroprosthetics that detect signals related to a residual movement that someone can make (like a bit of a walking movement, a bit of a wrist movement). Then the devices use that signal to trigger a stimulator to activate muscles that cannot get the normal activation from the nervous system. It is important to understand how these types of devices function to getcloser to appreciating how the Iron Man suit could actually work. For starters, the suit would have sensors detecting nervous system commands from nerve or muscle as well as commands from residual movement. The suit then would amplify the normal movement. However, it wouldnât do so by stimulating the muscles like in FES. Instead the trigger signals would drive the motors controlling the joints in the Iron Man robotic suit. Above we were talking about restoring function in a damaged nervous system with FES and neuroprosthetics. In that way the neuroprosthetic helps âbridgeâ the problems in the nervous system to restore some movement ability. This is what Tony will need to operate the NTU-150 and already exists in the form of the Cyberdyne Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) wearable robot suit.
HAL is a
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