With funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program, Robert Gaunt, Ph.D.,
assistant professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
(PM&R), Pitt School of Medicine and a multidisciplinary research
team from Pitt, West Virginia University and Ripple LLC will begin
developing the technology with the aim of being able to test it in
patients’ homes within four years.
“Advanced prosthetic limbs that behave like the hand and arm they
are replacing have been an unrealized promise for many years largely
because until recently, the technologies to really accomplish this goal
simply haven’t been available,” Dr. Gaunt said. “To make the most of
these new capabilities, we have to integrate the prosthetic into the
remaining neural circuitry so the patient can use it like a regular hand
that, for example, can pick up a pen, gently hold an egg or turn a
stuck doorknob.”
In the 18-month, first phase of the project, the team will recruit
five volunteers to try to demonstrate that stimulation of the sensory
portion of the spinal cord nerves, which would normally innervate the
hand and forearm, can cause the amputee to feel distinct sensations of
touch and joint movement in the “phantom” hand and wrist.
They also plan to insert fine-wire electrodes into the forearm
muscles of able-bodied volunteers to collect and interpret muscle
signals to guide movement of a virtual prosthetic hand to control hand
opening and closing, as well as thumb movement. Eventually, the team
aims to devise a fully implantable system for home use.
Michael Boninger, M.D., PM&R professor and chair, who will co-direct the project with Dr. Gaunt, called it a very exciting study.
“In my treatment of rehabilitation patients, the goal is always
clear,” Dr. Boninger said. “They want the medical team to make them like
they were. The technology developed through HAPTIX will enable that
dream.”
The project will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team of
engineers, scientists and clinicians from PM&R, plastic surgery, and
neurological surgery in the School of Medicine, and occupational
therapy, and rehabilitation science & technology in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Key aspects of the system will be designed by researchers at West Virginia University, and Ripple LLC, in Salt Lake City, Utah, will develop all the implantable system components.
Funding for the research was made possible by an award from the BRAIN Initiative,
a White House program launched to revolutionize understanding of the
brain and accelerate the development of new technologies. The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Food and Drug Administration, and DARPA committed more than $110 million to the Initiative for fiscal year 2014.