Questão 57 - FPP Medicina Inverno 2019

Read the news about a study results and answer: which aspect still needs to be proved from further research?

 

This Robotic Prosthetic Could Help Long-term Amputees

 

US-based neuroscientists at the University of Chicago are developing prosthetics for amputee Rhesus monkeys. It is being used as a testbed to showcase how amputees could control prosthetics, even if born with missing limbs.

Nicho Hatsopoulos, Ph.D., professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago said that "That’s the novel aspect to this study, seeing that chronic, long-term amputees can learn to control a robotic limb,"

"But what was also interesting was the brain’s plasticity over long-term exposure and seeing what happened to the connectivity of the network as they learned to control the device."

This study used Rhesus monkeys instead of human patients. They were rescue monkeys who needed emergency amputation owing to serious injuries prior to their rescue.

Using electrode arrays implanted into their brains the monkeys were trained to reach for objects using the robotic appendages.

https://interestingengineering.com/13-prosthetic-arms-and-legs-and-more-that-appear-to-have-come-from-the-future Access: March,2019.