BRC2010 Keynote Lecture

Professor Nitish V. Thakor (Johns Hopkins University) will be a keynote speaker at BRC2010.

From Myprosthesis to Neuroprosthesis: Emerging Technologies in Human-Machine Interface

Prosthesis technology has remained rather static over the past century, but is now experiencing an explosive growth due to rapid advances in technologies and grand challenge initiatives to revolutionizing the prosthesis technologies. This talk will present the status of modern upper limb prosthesis technology and the evolutionary and revolutionary advances in the field. Research in prosthetics has now spawned exciting advances and problems in human-machine interfaces. However, the prosthesis technology advances also bring with them the challenges of finding the means to control these prosthetic limbs – such limbs now have dexterous hands and up to 22 degrees of freedom.

Myprosthesis is the more conventional approach but controlling dexterous hands requires advanced decoding methods. The Neuroprosthesis is the recent innovation affording the possibility of controlling the prosthesis intuitively via a brain-machine interface. The neural interface may be noninvasive (controlled by EEG) or invasive (Electrocorticogram, neural spike and local field potentials). Once again, the great challenge is to develop neural decoding and signal processing methods. Path forward, to bring such advanced prostheses to amputees is more complex, involving cost of the technology, manufacturability, ergonomics and human interface, training and utilization by amputees, ethics of neural implant surgeries, etc. This talk will conclude with the thoughts on the technology for the future, research problems, and how utilization of the technology can be promoted around the world through a global partnership.