Implants & Prosthetics

Three blind mice? No longer, say two researchers in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Cornell Medical College who deciphered a mouse's retina's neural code. Then, they linked this information to a novel prosthetic device that restored sight to blind mice. In addition, they say that they...

Scientists in the schools of Pharmacy and Molecular Medical Sciences at the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, have discovered what they say is a new class of polymers that are resistant to bacterial attachment. These new materials could lead to a significant reduction in hospital infections and medical...

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) holds great promise to treat neurological disorders ranging from Parkinson's disease to depression. But the current electrode used for implanting in DBS tend to induce an immune response in patients that reduces the treatment's efficacy. over time....

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional economic organization consisting of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam is developing a combined regulatory system for medical devices to cover all member countries. The ASEAN Medical...

Scientists at Clemson University (Clemson, SC) have designed and built a knee simulator on which specimens from cadavers can be mounted to study the effects of different unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) alignment and ligament configurations on movement, as well as contact pressure distributions...

Thousands of veterans return to the U.S. with limb amputations, and for many, standard prosthetics are not an option due to skin issues or short remaining-limb length. These amputees require something other than the typical socket-type attachment systems. Researchers and surgeons from the University of Utah and...

Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, affects millions of Americans. Implantable sensor technology and custom-designed cartilage scaffolding systems could greatly improve quality of life for these patients. Researchers at the University of Arizona and three other universities around the world are...

By incorporating the right sensors and software, robots can be given the ability to identify different materials by touch. A specially designed robot even outperformed humans in identifying a wide range of natural materials according to their textures, in a recent study by research from the USC...

The development of body-powered prosthetic hands has stagnated over the past 20 years, concludes a recent study from the Netherlands. Researchers at TU Delft and the University of Groningen conducted a test comparing the results of contemporary body-powered prosthetic hands to earlier measurements...

Image-generating ability is not limited to people with working eyesight. With this phenomenon in mind, neuroscientists at the Texas Medical Center are researching a way to use the brain's image-generating ability to help some of the estimated 39 million people worldwide who are blind. The...

A team of Rice University students has developed a transcutaneous energy-transfer (TET) unit to power a minimally invasive ventricular assist device (VAD) being created by a Houston compay. The VAD is a tiny pump inserted into the aorta via a catheter that helps increase blood flow and...

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are developing an implantable system for a third-generation artificial retina as part of a U.S. Department of Energy project to produce an "retinal prosthesis" that could restore vision to millions of people suffering from eye diseases.

In a conventional cochlear implant, there are three main parts that are worn externally on the head behind the ear: a microphone to pick up sound, a speech processor and a radio transmitter coil. These external components may be undesirable because they raise reliability issues, prevent patients from swimming, and...

A main limitation in deployment of prosthetic technology is the integration of the prosthetic device into the body. Using current procedures, effective prosthetic integration often requires 18 months and multiple surgeries. A new technique involves merging tissue...

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a new configuration for neutron generators by turning from conventional cylindrical tubes to flat geometry of computer chips. The most practical and near-term application would be a tiny medical neutron source implanted close to...