Bionic Brain
People with spinal cord injuries don’t move because the brain and the body no longer communicate. Scientists hope to restore motion with a mechanical skeleton controlled by the wearer’s thoughts. It’s a daunting challenge; hundreds of sensors must be implanted in the brain to send commands to the exoskeleton. Signals must also travel in reverse, from touch sensors telling the brain where the body is in space.
Electrodes the width of a human hair are arranged in arrays like bristles on a toothbrush. experiments on monkeys use four arrays to monitor 2,000 neurons. Many more would be needed for a human to walk.
Multiple electrode arrays send signal to a central processing unit in a helmet, which compiles signals into coherent commands.
The commands are transmitted wirelessly to a backpack computer that coordinates the complex motions need to walk.
Tiny motors on the exoskeleton pick up computer commands to move the joint and limbs.
Touch sensors provide feedback from the environment, to sense where the body is in space,the exoskeleton is dotted with sensors that pick up texture, movement and pressure through a plastic covering, much like a touch screen.
These signals are transmitted back to the brain.
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