Book Report #50 : Better Bionics
Begin: 1/3/2025
Finish: 1/24/2025
Title: Better Bionics
Author: Simon Makin
Why did I choose to read this book:
The article is about advancement of science in the prosthetics. This knowledge will improve my analytical and critical thinking skills and also look into the future of body part replacement.
What I learned from this book:
The human body is a marvel of engineering, but it is a machine that requires maintenance and repair. Many efforts to improve replacement in the past. The technology has improved exponentially but one key challenge remains: making replacement limb easy for the user to control. To solve the major problem, researchers are flipping the script and re-engineering the human body.
Brain-Controlled prosthetics limbs take steps closer to reality:
If we look at the body as part of the system to be engineered in parallel with the machine, the two will be able to interact better – anatomic. In an anatomic approach, bones are exploited to provide stable anchors. Nerves are rerouted to create control signals for robotic limbs or transmit sensory feedback. Muscle are co-opted as biological amplifiers or grafted into place to provide more signal sources. These techniques all improve the connection and communication between a robotic limb and the human nervous system, enhancing what bionic protheses are capable.
Reconstructing Muscles:
The body’s awareness of itself in space – called Proprioception – is a tricky sense to restore, but its important for movement, especially walking. In traditional amputation, the important feedback is discarded – an agonist – antagonist myo-neural interface, or an AMI, surgically reconstructs these push-pull pairs and uses the signals they generate to control prosthetics joints. When the prosthesis moves, the person actually feels that movement as a natural proprioceptive sensation.
Extending Bones:
The most common complaints from prosthetics users involve pain and discomfort. A major source of discomfort is the attachment point. A technique called osseointegration exploits the fact that certain metals bond with bone. Typically, a titanium bolt inserted into the skeleton anchors the prosthesis in place, providing greater strength, stability and comfort.
Rerouting Nerves:
Bionicists have long sought to tap into the body’s nerves to create protheses that communicate with the brain. Electrical signals that nerves carry are very weak. Instead modern bionic protheses communicate mostly with muscles. When activated by a nerve, muscle emit much larger electrical signal use to control the prosthetic limb.
Rebuilding Bodies:
On of the projects under development is a new attachment method that avoids the permenant hole that comes with osseointegration. Instead of a titanium bolt, there is a piece of steel in the limb and an electromagnet in the socket of the prosthetics. Magnet holds the socket onto the limb and then you can control how much attractive force there is by changing the current through the electromagnet. The socket does not have to bear the load; the magnetic force does the job, changing from moment to moment during walking. The new technique – magneto micrometry, involves placing magnetic spheres inside muscles and monitoring their movements with magnetometers. With these magnets, we can use it to directly control the bionic prosthetic. These products could be available commercially in about five years.
An added benefit of restoring proprioception alongside other kinds of sensory feedback such as touch, is that the prosthesis feels more like a part of the recipient.
How will this book contribute to my success upon release:
This scientific book has shed light on the advancement of science in the prothesis world. As the population ages, demands for such services will grow. The book has improved my analytical and critical think skills, Also I hope to work in this industry upon my release.