At the AAAS conference today, I sat in on a panel about neural implants and prosthetics. (the previousposts about retinal and urinary control implants came out of the same session.)
Michael Merzenich, a neuroscientist at UC San Francisco, made some interesting comments about the evolution of prosthetics that connect to the brain.
One major theme of new prosthetics is their ability to not only connect to the brain but essentially "be a little part of your very smart brain," he said.
For example, a lower arm prosthetic is not just "a foreign mechanical device sitting on the arm stump. Now it's integrated into the body image, part of them. It's a consequence of changing the interface between device and wearer (to allow) the wearer to adapt to it."
This must be old news to anyone who's followed the development of prosthetics, but it still sounds really cool.
