Robotic “Third Thumb” Use Can Change Just How the Hand Is Represented in the Brain
Using a robotic ‘Third Thumb’ can impact how the hand is represented in the brain, finds a new study led by University College London researchers.
The group trained individuals to use an additional robotic thumb and found they could effectively carry out dextrous jobs, like building a tower of blocks with one hand (now with two thumbs). The scientists report in the journal Science Robotics that participants educated to utilize the thumb more and more felt like it was a part of their body.
Designer Dani Clode started developing the Third Thumb tool as part of an award-winning graduate project at the Royal College of Art, seeking to reframe how we perceive prosthetics, from changing a lost feature to an extension of the human body. She was later welcomed to sign up with Teacher Tamar Makin’s team of neuroscientists at UCL, who was examining out just how the brain can adjust to body augmentation.
Teacher Makin (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience), the lead writer of the study, claimed: “Body enhancement is an expanding field targeted at expanding our physical abilities, yet we lack a clear understanding of exactly how our brains can adapt to it. By studying people using Dani’s cleverly-designed Third Thumb, we tried to respond to essential concerns around whether the human mind can support an additional body part, and also how the technology could influence our brain.”
The Third Thumb is 3D-printed, making it easy to personalize, and is worn on the side of the hand opposite the user’s actual thumb, near the little (pinky) finger. The wearer regulates it with pressure sensing units affixed to their feet, on the underside of the large toes. Wirelessly linked to the thumb, both toe sensors control different thumb movements by immediately reacting to refined pressure adjustments from the user.
For the research, 20 participants were educated to utilize the thumb over five days. They were also urged to take the Thumb home every day after training to use it in daily life activities, completing two to six hrs of wear time daily. Those participants were compared to an added team of 10 control individuals who used a fixed thumb version while completing the same training.
Throughout daily sessions in the lab, participants were educated to utilize the thumb, focusing on assignments that helped better the teamwork in between their hand and the thumb, such as picking up several balls or wine glasses with one hand. They figured out the basics of using the thumb swiftly, while the training allowed them to effectively improve their motor control, dexterity, as well as hand-Thumb coordination. When distracted, individuals could also use the thumb to develop a woodblock tower while doing a maths problem or blindfolded.
Developer Dani Clode (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Dani Clode Layout) that became part of the core study team said: “Our research study reveals that people can swiftly discover to regulate an enhancement device and also use it for their advantage, without overthinking. We saw that while using the Third Thumb, individuals changed their all-natural hand movements, and also they likewise reported that the robot thumb felt like part of their very own body.”
The first writer of the study, Paulina Kieliba (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience), stated: “Body enhancement might one day be valuable to culture in various methods, such as allowing a surgeon to manage without an assistant or a factory worker to working extra successfully. This line of work might transform the concept of prosthetics, and it can help a person who completely or momentarily can use one hand to do everything keeping that hand. Yet to get there, we require to proceed to look into the challenging, interdisciplinary inquiries of how these devices connect with our brains.”
Before and after the training, the researchers scanned individuals’ brains using fMRI while the participants moved their fingers separately (they were not putting on the thumb while in the scanner). The scientists found subtle yet significant changes to just how the hand that had been boosted with the Third Thumb (however not the other hand) was represented in the brain’s sensorimotor cortex. In our brains, each finger is stood for definitely from the others; amongst the study individuals, the mind activity pattern representing each private finger became much more comparable (much less distinctive).
A week later, several of the individuals were scanned again, and also the changes in their mind’s hand location had decreased, suggesting the modifications could not be long-term. Even more research is needed to verify this.
Paulina Kieliba claimed: “Our research is the initial one investigating using an enhancement tool beyond a lab. The initial augmentation research study rollovered several days of prolonged training and was the first to have an untrained comparison group. The success of our study shows the value of neuroscientists working closely together with designers and also engineers to make certain that enhancement gadgets take advantage of our mind’s ability to discover as well as adjust while also making sure that augmentation gadgets can be utilized securely.”
Professor Makin included: “Evolution has not ready us to utilize an added body part, as well as we have discovered that to prolong our capacities in new and also unanticipated methods, the brain will need to adapt the depiction of the biological body.”
Originally published on Scitechdaily.com. Read the original article.
Reference: “Robotic hand augmentation drives changes in neural body representation” by Paulina Kieliba, Danielle Clode, Roni O. Maimon-Mor and Tamar R. Makin, 19 May 2021, Science Robotics.
DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.abd7935
