Inside a UC Davis lab, Schofield attached electrodes to Brockman’s forearm using an electromyography machine, which records the muscle’s electrical activity. He asked Brockman to make several different hand gestures, and the computer’s programming begins to recognize those patterns. Electromyography can sometimes confuse electrical signals from other muscles, so the scientists are also using ultrasound machines that use sound waves to produce images. When Brockman contracts a muscle, it becomes denser and bounces back more sound. The researchers are combining all this technology and data with AI in the hope that prosthetics will become more intuitive for the user.
Can Prosthetics “Feel?” Surgeons are hoping to advance prosthesis embodiment by enabling users who lost their sensory nerves to gauge temperature and pressure. They may be able to do with sensory nerves what they did with motor nerves in the targeted muscle reinnervation surgery — connect the severed ones with those in the overlying skin. If the artificial hand is touched or gets hot, it sends that signal to the skin of the amputee. Amputees also have difficulty sensing body position and movement with a prosthetic device. But researchers said one way to overcome that is to integrate prosthetic devices into the body, like a human machine. The concept, called osseointegration, is the next step in smart prosthetics. “We’re leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms that are looking at the muscles that remain in that person’s residual limb,” Schofield said. “It’s learning what that activity looks like when amputees wanted to pinch or make a fist or make a pointing motion.”
David Brockman with his wife, Tereasa Brockman, at UC Davis after David had a fitting for his prosthetic hand. (Gregory Urquiaga / UC Davis)
“Osseointegration is making the prosthetic device essentially heal into the bone and become a weight bearing proprioceptive structure,” said Li, the UC Davis hand surgeon. “You can still take it off, but it’s much more a solid component of your body that could potentially make things a lot more intuitive, a lot more natural, like picking up heavy things, doing pull-ups potentially.” The Integrum OPRA osseointegrated implant for above knee amputations is Food and Drug Administration approved and allows direct integration between bone and the surface of a prosthetic device. UC Davis is now actively recruiting patients for the surgery. ◆
UC NOYCE INITIATIVE IMPACT
UC Noyce Initiative funding has allowed Jonathon Schofield and the team of researchers to expand the project in more ways than one. The team added two more patients to the research project. UCNI support has also been instrumental in allowing the next generation of researchers and the public to engage with the project. Funding allowed the team to hire one master's student and one postdoctoral researcher, and participate in public outreach events like UC Davis' NeuroFest and UC Davis Picnic Day, where the team has shared their groundbreaking work with the community.
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