Spinal stimulators could give sensory feedback to prosthetic arms

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Spinal stimulators used to relieve chronic pain could provide sensory feedback to a prosthetic arm, claim researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Rehab Neural Engineering Labs.

For their study, published in eLife, four amputees received spinal stimulators which create the illusion of sensations in the missing arm.

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"What's unique about this work is that we're using devices that are already implanted in 50,000 people a year for pain - physicians in every major medical centre across the country know how to do these surgical procedures - and we get similar results to highly specialised devices and procedures," said study senior author Lee Fisher, Ph.D., assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPMC).

The strings of implanted spinal electrodes run along the spinal cord, where they sit slightly to one side, upon the same nerve roots that would normally transmit sensations from the arm.

Fisher's team sent electrical pulses through different spots in the implanted electrodes while participants used a tablet to report what they were feeling and where.

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