Targeted Muscle Re-Innervation

Targeted muscle re-innervation is a method of allowing an artificial or virtual arm, to respond as an organic arm would to sub-conscious thought patterns. TMR works by rewiring nerve endings.

Surgeons cut the nerves serving chest muscles that once helped support and move the missing limb. These are, after all, no-longer needed. Then they separate out the motor nerves in the arm stump that used to control the patient's arm and connect them to the chest muscle instead. This gives the nerves ample blood supply to keep working. When the patient goes to move their arm or hand, the nerves in the chest muscle fire, sending the signal to the ?arm?, and the signal is picked up, and deciphered by a sensor which tells the prosthetic how to move.

Below, we offer a selection of links from our resource databases which may match this term.

Targeted Muscle Re-Innervation TMR

Results by page [1]   [2]   

Targeted Muscle Reinnervation Increases Prosthetic BMI
A Journal of the American Medical Association study looked at targeted muscle re-innervation to see if it did indeed have as much success as studies conducted by those with a vested interest in a positive result.

Meshworm: A robot made of a single Artificial Muscle
Meshworm is the prototype proof of concept for a new type of artificial muscle, based on an in-depth study of the movement patterns of the common earthworm, and shows how it is possible to create a 'soft' robot or prosthetic that is basically a single muscle and very little else.

Virtual Reality: The Revolutionary Technology of Computer-Generated Artificial Worlds - and How It Promises to Transform Society

This book, by author and renowned VR expert Howard Rhinegold, was first published in 1991 ? nearly twenty years ago. All those years back, Rhinegold still managed to predict VR applications that are only just being realised today. Walking through computer mediated environments, with the power of physical legs; having targeted muscle re-enervation provide the neural connectivity of physical legs if you have none. Doctors treating patients remotely, or operating on precise mock-ups of patients before they lay eyes on them for the first time. Touring buildings, rendered in 3D, from blueprints alone.

Controlling Devices by Muscle Movement

Mimi Switch, a Japanese muscle monitoring device, has an interesting premise. It looks like a normal set of headphones but is fitted with a set of infrared sensors that measure tiny movements inside the ear that result from different facial expressions.

Research Behind MUCI Armbands
A PDF released by Microsoft Research, entitled ?Demonstrating the Feasibility of Using Forearm Electromyography for Muscle-Computer Interfaces? details the science behind utilising muscle control as an alternative, viable input system to gesture recognition or spoken commands.
PDF size: 1 meg

Prototype Ionic Artificial Muscle Doubles as a Speaker
A prototype ionic muscle has been created by researchers at Harvard University. Not very strong, yet exceptionally pliant, its main claim to fame is that it can flex thousands of times per second, and being completely non-electronic, is capable at least in theory, of conversing with the neurons of the body in their native ionic tongue.

NASA's X1 Exoskeletal Framework
NASA have unveiled their prototype X1 exoskeletal frame and trainer device. Unlike most exoskeletons, the key feature of this exceedingly bulky one, is that it can be used for training, just as well as enhanced walking. It is designed to inhibit muscle movement as well as enhance it; optionally forcing the wearer to work much harder for every movement.

Lip Reading and Visemes
We are just on the cusp of an age of visemes in virtual environments. Lip-synching technologies have advanced to the point where, given an input text stream, and knowing the language of said stream - how to pronounce the phonemes - a computer program can animate a virtual face with a compatible muscle structure, at the same time as it is converting text to speech.

Results by page