Bioengineering future

What will happen if bionic prostheses become available to everyone

Anna Alekseeva, "Snob"

A few centuries ago, prostheses were attached to the human body with straps and had no connection with the nervous system. In the 60s, industrial production of bioelectrically controlled forearm prostheses began in the USSR. In 2014, a DEKA Arm bionic prosthetic arm was created in the USA, which bent, turned and performed grips using sensors attached to the patient's stump. A year later, the prostheses began to be printed on a 3D printer. Some prostheses make it possible to feel the touch of an object, with the help of prosthetics, bioengineers can replace bone tissue, joints, there are also cosmetic prosthetics of the face, eyes. Canadian director and producer Rob Spence, who lost his eye at the age of 9, replaced the cosmetic implant with a miniature video camera. With the development of technology, some people are trying to become a kind of cyborg, "hack" their body and expand their capabilities. This direction was called "biohacking". Biohacker Amal Graafstra has implanted RFID chips between his fingers that allow him to unlock doors and turn on a computer. An encrypted key to an electronic wallet is also stored on one of the chips in his hand.

When developing prostheses, difficulties arise with reading the signals that the brain gives. For example, if a person wants to raise his hand, about 500 million neurons are activated in his brain. Technically, it is possible to analyze a simultaneous signal of only a few hundred, so only the most advanced (and therefore expensive) prostheses are equipped with sensors capable of measuring the electrical activity of the remaining part of the limb and responding to this signal. Working with such prostheses requires practice, and they still remain uncomfortable.

But the industry is developing at a rapid pace, and if 10 years ago bionic hands, nicknamed "Luke Skywalker's hand" by developers, were unattainably expensive, massive and created in a single copy, today some models will cost several thousand dollars. Similarly, three decades ago, a mobile phone cost $ 4,000 and weighed a kilogram, and today it is much lighter and accessible to everyone. What will happen when such developments enter the mass market and become publicly available?

Ilya Cech, founder of W.E.A.S. Robotics and the Motorica high–tech prosthetics project; winner of the "Snob" award "Made in Russia - 2016":

This sphere is beginning to develop only now, both in our country and in the world. Today, it is used exclusively to help disabled people and is considered one of the most promising areas in technology. Bioengineering and bionics are the fastest growing direction even compared to industrial robotics. In the future, in 20-30 years, such services as transplantation, implantation of chips, artificial organs will be basic and will become available in almost any clinics. As now people go for inpatient examination, so they will go to robotics centers. It will become ubiquitous. There's no getting away from it.

Technologies will also help a person improve his own body: body modifications will develop to the level of semi-cyborgs. First of all, such developments will affect the military sphere, because more money is allocated there. Then they will gradually merge into ordinary life.

Implantation of chips is a rarity even now. Technologies have not yet reached the level where they can become massive in terms of security and cost. Any chip or implant has 5-10 years for clinical research before entering the market. The period of inspections and adaptation is very long. And it is still unknown what will happen to a person who will wear a chip for 30 years.

Timur Saifutdinov, Head of the Maxbionic Laboratory in Moscow:

Today biomechatronics, combining medicine and robotics, helps people with disabilities to adapt to the realities of the world. You can't, for example, put ramps everywhere, but you can use technology to adapt people to the world around you. Current technologies allow you to connect to the human nervous system and receive a large amount of data. By analyzing them, we will be able to understand such complex diseases as cerebral palsy or Parkinson's disease and find a cure.

The Olympiad was organized to prove that human capabilities are not limited. And now there is a Cybathlon. This is an Olympiad for people with disabilities, but, unlike the Paralympics, they compete technically, using high-tech assistive devices. The first such Olympiad was held in Zurich in October 2016 and will be held every 4 years.

Implanted mechanisms increase a person's physical abilities, help them run faster, and make them more resilient. At the current stage of development, the most popular device is an exoskeleton, which allows you to increase muscle strength due to the external frame. The main developments are for military purposes. However, the use of an exoskeleton in combat is very specific: it is useless due to the fact that the number of weapons and firepower is growing, and the exoskeleton itself does not give dexterity, so for now it is used as a loading device. The exoskeleton also helps people with disabilities to walk, sit and stand.

In the next 10 years, prostheses will be available that can reproduce about 80% of human movements. Now the most advanced reproduces 15%. I think it's worth thinking about cyborgization after that. A person is driven by the desire to be stronger, faster and smarter. There is a trend for cyborgization even now. People implanting chips under the skin call themselves people of the XXI century, but only time will tell how far it will go.

Statistics In the USA, 65,000 amputations are performed annually.
In 80% of cases, patients are people over 50 years old. The most common amputations are below the knee. The main cause of amputations is vascular diseases and injuries. Only 4% live with congenital absence of limbs.
According to Rosstat, there are 12.8 million disabled people in Russia. Of these, the disabled of group I – 1.3 million people, group II – 6.3 million people, group III – 4.6 million people, disabled children - 617,000. According to calculations Ministry of Labor for 2015, 86.6% of disabled people are provided with technical means of rehabilitation. In the same year, the state allocated 676,743 prostheses, 2408 devices for dressing, undressing and grabbing objects.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  13.03.2017