The sixth finger
The robotic extra finger is read by the brain as a native
Maria Tolmacheva, XX2 century
The experimenters trained people to use a robotic extra thumb and found that they were able to effectively perform dexterity tasks, for example, building a tower of blocks with one hand (now with two thumbs). In the journal Science Robotics (Kieliba et al., Robotic hand augmentation drives changes in neural body representation – VM), researchers report that participants trained to use a robotic thumb gradually felt it more and more as part of their body.
Drawings from the press release of Robotic ‘Third Thumb’ use can alter brain representation of the hand.
Designer Dani Clode has started developing a device called the "Third Thumb" as part of an award-winning project of graduates of the Royal College of Art. Later she was invited to join a team of neuroscientists led by a professor Tamar Makin from UCL, who studied how the brain can adapt to body augmentation.
The "third thumb" is printed on a 3D printer, which facilitates its customization, and is worn next to the little finger, that is, on the side of the brush opposite to where the real thumb is located. The user controls the robot finger using two pressure sensors attached to the underside of the big toes. The connection to the additional thumb is wireless, both sensors on the legs control various movements of the prosthesis, instantly reacting to barely noticeable changes in pressure from the user.
As part of the study, 20 participants were trained to use an artificial thumb for five days, during which they were also asked to take the prosthesis home every day after training to use it in everyday life, for a total of two to six hours of wearing per day.
During daily lab sessions, participants trained to use an extra thumb, concentrating on tasks that help increase the connection between their hand and the extra finger. For example, it was necessary to lift several balls or glasses of wine with one hand. The participants quickly mastered the basics of using an additional thumb, and the training allowed them to successfully improve motor control, dexterity and hand-finger coordination.
– The technology of "body augmentation" (body augmentation) may one day be useful for society in many ways, for example, to enable a surgeon to do without an assistant or a worker in a factory to work more efficiently. This line of work can revolutionize the concept of prosthetics and help a person who can permanently or temporarily use only one hand to do everything with this hand. But in order to achieve this, we need to continue researching complex interdisciplinary questions about how these devices interact with our brain, comments the co-author of the study. Pauline Kieliba (Paulina Kieliba).
The researchers scanned the participants' brains using MRI before and after training – when the participants moved only their fingers and when they used an additional thumb. The researchers found subtle but significant changes in how the hand, which was supplemented with a "third thumb", was represented in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain: the brain read the prosthesis as a real finger.
A week later, some of the participants were scanned again, and the changes in the representation of the hands in their brain decreased, which suggests that these changes may be short-term. Although more research is needed to confirm this conclusion.
– Our study is the first in which the use of a body augmentation device was studied outside the laboratory. The success of our study shows the value of close collaboration of neuroscientists with designers and engineers to ensure that body augmentation devices maximize the ability of our brain to learn and adapt, as well as to ensure the safety of using augmentation devices, Paulina Kieliba told reporters.
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