WASHINGTON, DC -- Advanced prosthetic limbs and eyes as well as brain-machine interfaces are harnessing existing neural circuitry to improve the quality of life for people with sensory impairment, according to studies presented today at Neuroscience 2017, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
Millions of people around the world are unable to fully use their bodies or senses due to disease, injury, or amputation. At best, modern therapies and prostheses only partially restore function. Over the past 20 years, advances in biomedical engineering have led to the development of interfaces between prosthetic devices, the nervous system, and human tissue that are enhancing the effectiveness of biomedical devices.
Today's new findings show that:
Other recent findings discussed show that:
"Unlike many pharmacological or biologic therapies to help people with neurological injuries or disease, engineering solutions have the potential for immediate and sometimes dramatic restoration of function," said press conference moderator Leigh Hochberg of Massachusetts General Hospital, Brown University, and the Providence VA Medical Center, and an expert in neurotechnologies. "It is really exciting to see how the growth of fundamental neuroscience and neuroengineering research over many years is leading to the creation of technologies that will help to reduce the burden of neurological and psychiatric disease."
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This research was supported by national funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, as well as other public, private, and philanthropic organizations worldwide. Find out more about neuroprosthetics and brain machine interface on BrainFacts.org .
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is an organization of nearly 37,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.