The loss of a hand disrupts the sophisticated neural pathways between the brain and the hand, severely affecting the level of independence of the patient and the ability to carry out daily work and social activities. Recent years have witnessed a rapid evolution of surgical techniques and technologies aimed at restoring dexterous motor functions akin to those of the human hand through bionic solutions, mainly relying on probing of electrical signals from the residual nerves and muscles. Here, we report the clinical implementation of an interface aimed at achieving this goal by exploiting muscle deformation, sensed through passive magnetic implants: the myokinetic interface. One participant with a transradial amputation received an implantation of six permanent magnets in three muscles of the residual limb. A truly self-contained myokinetic prosthetic arm embedding all hardware components and the battery within the prosthetic socket was developed. By retrieving muscle deformation caused by voluntary contraction through magnet localization, we were able to control in real time a dexterous robotic hand following both a direct control strategy and a pattern recognition approach. In just 6 weeks, the participant successfully completed a series of functional tests, achieving scores similar to those achieved when using myoelectric controllers, a standard-of-care solution, with comparable physical and mental workloads. This experience raised conceptual and technical limits of the interface, which nevertheless pave the way for further investigations in a partially unexplored field. This study also demonstrates a viable possibility for intuitively interfacing humans with robotic technologies.

中文翻译：

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使用植入磁铁的肌动假肢恢复上肢截肢者的抓握能力


失去一只手会破坏大脑和手之间复杂的神经通路，严重影响患者的独立水平以及进行日常工作和社交活动的能力。近年来，手术技术和技术迅速发展，旨在通过仿生解决方案恢复类似于人手的灵巧运动功能，主要依靠探测来自残余神经和肌肉的电信号。在这里，我们报告了一种界面的临床实施，旨在通过利用通过被动磁性植入物感应的肌肉变形来实现这一目标：肌动力学界面。一名经桡动脉截肢术的参与者在残肢的三块肌肉中植入了六块永磁体。开发了一种真正独立的肌动力学假肢手臂，嵌入了所有硬件组件和电池，位于假肢插座内。通过磁体定位检索由自主收缩引起的肌肉变形，我们能够遵循直接控制策略和模式识别方法实时控制灵巧的机械手。在短短 6 周内，参与者成功完成了一系列功能测试，取得了与使用肌电控制器（一种标准护理解决方案）时取得的分数相似的分数，具有相当的体力和脑负荷。这一经历提高了界面的概念和技术限制，尽管如此，这为在部分未开发的领域的进一步研究铺平了道路。这项研究还证明了直观地将人类与机器人技术连接起来的可行可能性。