Illusory movement perception improves motor control for prosthetic hands.

ABSTRACT: To effortlessly complete an intentional movement, the brain needs feedback from the body regarding the movement's progress. This largely nonconscious kinesthetic sense helps the brain to learn relationships between motor commands and outcomes to correct movement errors. Prosthetic systems for restoring function have predominantly focused on controlling motorized joint movement. Without the kinesthetic sense, however, these devices do not become intuitively controllable. We report a method for endowing human amputees with a kinesthetic perception of dexterous robotic hands. Vibrating the muscles used for prosthetic control via a neural-machine interface produced the illusory perception of complex grip movements. Within minutes, three amputees integrated this kinesthetic feedback and improve

SUBMITTER: Marasco PD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5906050 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature