Your third limb

The Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) launched the Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) program in 2010 to cater to the need for high-performance neural-interfaces to control certain skillful functions with advanced prosthetic limbs. RE-Net is specifically set up to develop the technologies required to extract accurate information from the nervous system and to perform these functions at a scale and rate in order to control many degree-of-freedom machines such as the high performance prosthetic limbs. 

 

 

Before RE-NET was set up, other methods used to extract signals from the nervous system were not technologically sufficient or certified to operate the mind-controlled prosthetics. This was due to the fact that the level of extraction of information was too low or the lifetime for such devices were too short. Fortunately, with the advent of technology, it is now possible to develop neuromuscular interfaces that is capable of receiving information from the nervous system. In addition, cortical micro-electrodes technologies has advanced tremendously such that the durably of neural signals obtained from the brain makes it possible to create these mins-controlled prosthetics that can last a lifetime. 

 

 

The RE-NET programme released 3 Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for understanding some of the limitations of the neural interface and to solve some of these issues with regard to the performance of such neural interface devices. The 3 BAAs are as follows: (“Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET)”)

 

 

1. Histology for Interface Stabilty over-time (HIST, BAA 10-32

    Determines the mechanisms that lead to the failure of the neural interface.

 

 

2. Reliable Central-Nervous-System Interfaces (RCI, BAA 11-37)

    Works to build new interface devices for the brain and spinal cord designed to prevent or overcome failures identified in the HIST effort.

 

 

3. Reliable Peripheral Interfaces (RPI, BAA 11-08)

     Develops high performance in-vivo peripheral motor-signal recording and sensory-signal stimulating interfaces.

 

 

Working on a parallel track, Gregory Dumanian and Todd Kuiken pioneered a technology called the Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR), both doctors at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

 

TMR is a new surgical procedure that reassigns nerves that were used to carry signals from the brain to the missing hand and to a healthy large muscle such as the biceps or pectorals. Once the nerves have been reassigned, mind controlled prosthetics are made possible by merely thinking about the action because a sensor has been placed near the muscle where the nerves have been reassigned to and the external sensors placed on the skin are able to pick up the electromyography (EMG) signal and control the arm. When the electrodes pick up the signal they are able to translate the EMG to useful information that drives the arm. (Schechter, 2013).