The paralysed people moving robotic arms with their minds

Tom Whipple | The Times

The first time Scott Imbrie used his robotic arm one of the scientists, Lisa, walked in. Another researcher asked, could Imbrie shake her hand? So he tried. Just by thinking about it, he instructed the robotic hand to move up to hers. But something else happened too. “When I reached Lisa’s hand, I felt hers.”

In his own paralysed hand, totally separate to the robotic one, there was the sensation of touch. “It was so surreal. It made me feel like I’m really touching. It became a third limb, part of my body.”

Imbrie is part of a study, published this month, into allowing paralysed people to not only control robotic limbs with their mind, but feel with them too.

Giacomo Valle, from Chalmers University of Technology, Goteborg, in Sweden, said the aim of the project was “to restore their ability to interact with the environment and ultimately gain independence”. They want to give people robot arms on their wheelchairs.

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