Digital foot could enhance neuroprosthetics

The computational model provides a digital simulation of the signals that continuously flow through the body from the foot to the brain. The team believes it could be used to design more sophisticated neuroprosthetics – artificial limbs that can give the brain feedback about the world around is, in electrical form.

Called FootSim, the model allows scientists to map how the human nervous system continuously responds to contact with the soles of feet and changes in pressure points in unprecedented detail. It is described in a new paper in the journal iScience.

The digital sole model has been developed by Dr Rodrigo Kazu Siqueira, a computational neuroscientist at Sheffield University, and Natalija Katic, a PhD student at ETH Zürich and the University of Belgrade.

“To walk and maintain balance, humans rely on continuous feedback from the soles of our feet,” said Siqueira. “This information is sent in the form of electronic signals that travel through neurological pathways between our feet and brain.”