(MIT Technology Review) – When someone loses part of a leg, a prosthetic can make it easier to get around. But most prosthetics are static, cumbersome, and hard to move. Now a new neural interface developed by MIT researchers and colleagues connects a bionic lower limb to nerve endings in the thigh, allowing it to be controlled by the brain so that it feels more like a natural body part.

“When you ask a patient ‘What is your body?’ they don’t include the prosthesis,” says MIT biophysicist Hugh Herr, SM ’93, one of the lead authors on the study, who lost both his lower legs in a climbing accident when he was 17. He says linking the brain to the prosthesis can have a positive emotional impact. (Read More)