Finally, a mind-controlled robotic leg...

Research into a mind-controlled robotic leg offers hope for spinal cord injury victims.

(Phys.org)—Spinal cord injury victims may be able to look forward to life beyond a wheelchair via a robotic leg prosthesis controlled by brain waves. Individuals with paraplegia due to spinal cord injury who are wheelchair-bound face serious health problems, or in medical terminology, comorbidities, such as metabolic derangement, heart disease, osteoporosis, and pressure ulcers. New research efforts are being directed toward restoring brain-controlled ambulation for those who suffer from spinal cord injuries.

An Do, MD, at the Long Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center in California and colleagues at the University of California Irvine, have succeeded in connecting a mind-computer interface to a robotic leg. "This finding represents the first successful demonstration of a BCI-controlled lower extremity prosthesis for independent ambulation," say the researchers. They built and tested a prosthetic lower limb that can be controlled in real time by EEG (electroencephalogram) signals fed into a computer. Their work is presented in a paper, "Brain-Computer Interface Controlled Robotic Gait Orthosis: A Case Report," by An H. Do, Po T. Wang, Christine E. King, Sophia N. Chun, and Zoran Nenadic.