I’d like to talk to you today about a
miracle but first like you do realize
the complexity of your own hands right
take a look just them for a moment
wiggle your hands understand how
sophisticated they are and how much
they’ve walked you through life right
how much you’ve done with them the hand
the human hand is a remarkable piece of
engineering right that blends complexity
elegance and is remarkably durable
strong and yet sensitive people that
lose their hands through through no
choice of their own through trauma or
disease have their life’s trajectory
spin off and in a direction they
couldn’t have otherwise predicted and is
always tragic and unfortunately this
kind of accident often happens to the
most daring and adventurous of us yet
the solutions we have for them are
inadequate the devices simply don’t meet
the natural requirements of the human
hand they don’t move like a human hand
they don’t touch our loved ones like a
human hand and they don’t allow us to
continue life as we would have otherwise
I’d like to introduce to you some real
people that have real needs this is
Perry he is a United States Army veteran
who fell in a catastrophic injury
injuring his right hand ultimately
resulting in its loss an amputation in
front of him is his dog Gaia his best
friend he is our most recent research
participant and a great guy we feel that
we need to restore him to his full self
secondly I want to introduce you to
another young patient of mine named
scalene she was climbing not too far
from here
she didn’t rapid climber and was bilang
Josh when he fell she was able to rest
his fall unfortunately though a boulder
a one-ton boulder came down from 50 feet
and severed her left arm and left leg
she survived and she’s a champion and
for these champions we need tools
that wreath that that meet their needs
and that rise to their level of
achievement performance unfortunately we
don’t have those tools we have this tool
that has been around for a hundred years
we need more and this is not good enough
I have the opportunity to work at the
University of Utah
neural interface lab the VA hospital
helping both civilian and veteran
populations have access to this kind of
technology and devices we are designing
solutions that will restore the human
capacity for motion and for sensation to
do that we have to remember how the
brain operates the brain develops
thoughts those thoughts are transduced
into electrical Mike intellectual
currents I go down the spinal cord into
the arm and then they’re parsed into the
muscles where they’re then amplified and
then it’s a pattern of muscles that we
use that are caused specific motions we
do this unthinkingly therefore
prosthetics need to be intuitive we
implant devices called electrode arrays
that have 32 Platinum leads that go into
the muscles of the forearm to extract
them their electrical current to know
what patterns were attempting to
generate and then we correlate that with
motion either in virtual or real real
hands real prosthetic hands that is the
first part we hope to create dexterous
motion and I’ll show you that we do in
just a moment the hallmark of this and
in just looking at it is that it has
some features of naturalism in the
movement and that every movement between
every grasp is different and every
release is different just as we do
everything differently right we never
grab one object the same pretty much any
at any time and so it it meets the
variability of life and our requirements
but that’s not all motion alone is
simply not enough as anybody who has
ever tried to open a door with cold
hands and tiny keys can attest sensation
informs every bit of our motion we have
access to nerve implants developed at
the at the University of Utah black
systems that can be implanted into the
residual nerves the nerves that remain
above the level of injury so that we can
speak in the native electrical language
of the nerve from a sense Erised
prosthetic hand so the way it works is a
finger of the prosthetic hand touches a
surface that results in a signal it goes
to the computer that converts that into
the native language of the nerve and
routes it to one of those electrode tips
and then the person feels that
electricity go all the way up their body
and the exact channel that it would have
had they have had their normal natural
sensors on their hand and right to the
area of the brain that is salient they
feel sensation feel pressure vibration
they don’t feel pain it reduces phantom
pain in fact what I’d like to show you
here is a gentleman that hasn’t felt
from either arm both arms are lost for
27 years this is in a virtual
environment with sensation turned on
it’s an unscripted event and I need to
can you feel the fingers sliding when
you do that I think this sign was
unintentional at the end but he was
pretty excited just giving you kind of
the layout and technical specifications
the the engineers dream we can cover a
hundred twenty total sensations or areas
on the hand that correlate to pressure
vibration and joint movement so that
when you close your eyes you can feel
where your hand is in space and again no
pain the the micro arrays are about four
millimeters by four millimeters and you
fit about eight of them on a penny the
magic really happens though when you
combine advanced motor control with
sensory feedback rich sensory feedback
that’s when you start to have a closed
loop that replicates the way that we’ve
grown up to expect how to use their
hands
we result in task completion times for
moving things and to performing tasks at
thirty percent faster it’s also more
intuitive it’s easier and things are
more secure which turns out to be most
important prerequisite for people with
limb loss they want to make sure that
that iPhone doesn’t drop to the floor as
they’re distracted and lastly in a
surprise to us it allows them to perform
entirely novel tasks and I’d like to
just show you two right here he went on
to eat the whole bowl of cantaloupe and
the second was was things that we asked
him about what what do you feel that you
would really want to do if you had carte
blanche to really try anything and he
he was happy we were overjoyed and his
wife was ecstatic but seriously he’s
able to feel the cloth and make sure it
wasn’t slipping under his grip due to
restored sensation what else we
discovered his people and body it as
part of their body this is again an
unscripted opportunity he described what
he wanted to do it became a part of his
body working with it he described that
it felt like a part of him what’s
remarkable of this is that we’re moving
from out of the lab to going to take
home products in in the in the home
environment we’re still wired but we are
starting to see its efficacy at home and
how it makes lives easier
Perry has tried these type of tasks
before in the past with conventional top
and wine $50,000 prosthetic arms and has
right so he’s absolutely excited about
the possibilities in so am i the ability
to restore sensation and advanced motor
control through interfacing with the
muscles and nerves inherently improves
the function sense of self and restores
a person to their normal state right
what this does is an answer to the hopes
and prayers of many that have limb loss
and it also potentially removes
the specter of disability from future
generations of children that are born
for whatever reason without a limb I am
so grateful to be involved in their
lives and in the ability to generate
this kind of technology that should be
transformative and will only continue to
grow over the next decade and further
thank you for your attention [Applause]
miracle but first like you do realize
the complexity of your own hands right
take a look just them for a moment
wiggle your hands understand how
sophisticated they are and how much
they’ve walked you through life right
how much you’ve done with them the hand
the human hand is a remarkable piece of
engineering right that blends complexity
elegance and is remarkably durable
strong and yet sensitive people that
lose their hands through through no
choice of their own through trauma or
disease have their life’s trajectory
spin off and in a direction they
couldn’t have otherwise predicted and is
always tragic and unfortunately this
kind of accident often happens to the
most daring and adventurous of us yet
the solutions we have for them are
inadequate the devices simply don’t meet
the natural requirements of the human
hand they don’t move like a human hand
they don’t touch our loved ones like a
human hand and they don’t allow us to
continue life as we would have otherwise
I’d like to introduce to you some real
people that have real needs this is
Perry he is a United States Army veteran
who fell in a catastrophic injury
injuring his right hand ultimately
resulting in its loss an amputation in
front of him is his dog Gaia his best
friend he is our most recent research
participant and a great guy we feel that
we need to restore him to his full self
secondly I want to introduce you to
another young patient of mine named
scalene she was climbing not too far
from here
she didn’t rapid climber and was bilang
Josh when he fell she was able to rest
his fall unfortunately though a boulder
a one-ton boulder came down from 50 feet
and severed her left arm and left leg
she survived and she’s a champion and
for these champions we need tools
that wreath that that meet their needs
and that rise to their level of
achievement performance unfortunately we
don’t have those tools we have this tool
that has been around for a hundred years
we need more and this is not good enough
I have the opportunity to work at the
University of Utah
neural interface lab the VA hospital
helping both civilian and veteran
populations have access to this kind of
technology and devices we are designing
solutions that will restore the human
capacity for motion and for sensation to
do that we have to remember how the
brain operates the brain develops
thoughts those thoughts are transduced
into electrical Mike intellectual
currents I go down the spinal cord into
the arm and then they’re parsed into the
muscles where they’re then amplified and
then it’s a pattern of muscles that we
use that are caused specific motions we
do this unthinkingly therefore
prosthetics need to be intuitive we
implant devices called electrode arrays
that have 32 Platinum leads that go into
the muscles of the forearm to extract
them their electrical current to know
what patterns were attempting to
generate and then we correlate that with
motion either in virtual or real real
hands real prosthetic hands that is the
first part we hope to create dexterous
motion and I’ll show you that we do in
just a moment the hallmark of this and
in just looking at it is that it has
some features of naturalism in the
movement and that every movement between
every grasp is different and every
release is different just as we do
everything differently right we never
grab one object the same pretty much any
at any time and so it it meets the
variability of life and our requirements
but that’s not all motion alone is
simply not enough as anybody who has
ever tried to open a door with cold
hands and tiny keys can attest sensation
informs every bit of our motion we have
access to nerve implants developed at
the at the University of Utah black
systems that can be implanted into the
residual nerves the nerves that remain
above the level of injury so that we can
speak in the native electrical language
of the nerve from a sense Erised
prosthetic hand so the way it works is a
finger of the prosthetic hand touches a
surface that results in a signal it goes
to the computer that converts that into
the native language of the nerve and
routes it to one of those electrode tips
and then the person feels that
electricity go all the way up their body
and the exact channel that it would have
had they have had their normal natural
sensors on their hand and right to the
area of the brain that is salient they
feel sensation feel pressure vibration
they don’t feel pain it reduces phantom
pain in fact what I’d like to show you
here is a gentleman that hasn’t felt
from either arm both arms are lost for
27 years this is in a virtual
environment with sensation turned on
it’s an unscripted event and I need to
can you feel the fingers sliding when
you do that I think this sign was
unintentional at the end but he was
pretty excited just giving you kind of
the layout and technical specifications
the the engineers dream we can cover a
hundred twenty total sensations or areas
on the hand that correlate to pressure
vibration and joint movement so that
when you close your eyes you can feel
where your hand is in space and again no
pain the the micro arrays are about four
millimeters by four millimeters and you
fit about eight of them on a penny the
magic really happens though when you
combine advanced motor control with
sensory feedback rich sensory feedback
that’s when you start to have a closed
loop that replicates the way that we’ve
grown up to expect how to use their
hands
we result in task completion times for
moving things and to performing tasks at
thirty percent faster it’s also more
intuitive it’s easier and things are
more secure which turns out to be most
important prerequisite for people with
limb loss they want to make sure that
that iPhone doesn’t drop to the floor as
they’re distracted and lastly in a
surprise to us it allows them to perform
entirely novel tasks and I’d like to
just show you two right here he went on
to eat the whole bowl of cantaloupe and
the second was was things that we asked
him about what what do you feel that you
would really want to do if you had carte
blanche to really try anything and he
he was happy we were overjoyed and his
wife was ecstatic but seriously he’s
able to feel the cloth and make sure it
wasn’t slipping under his grip due to
restored sensation what else we
discovered his people and body it as
part of their body this is again an
unscripted opportunity he described what
he wanted to do it became a part of his
body working with it he described that
it felt like a part of him what’s
remarkable of this is that we’re moving
from out of the lab to going to take
home products in in the in the home
environment we’re still wired but we are
starting to see its efficacy at home and
how it makes lives easier
Perry has tried these type of tasks
before in the past with conventional top
and wine $50,000 prosthetic arms and has
right so he’s absolutely excited about
the possibilities in so am i the ability
to restore sensation and advanced motor
control through interfacing with the
muscles and nerves inherently improves
the function sense of self and restores
a person to their normal state right
what this does is an answer to the hopes
and prayers of many that have limb loss
and it also potentially removes
the specter of disability from future
generations of children that are born
for whatever reason without a limb I am
so grateful to be involved in their
lives and in the ability to generate
this kind of technology that should be
transformative and will only continue to
grow over the next decade and further
thank you for your attention [Applause]
Please follow and like us: