WASHINGTON, November 1 (RIA Novosti) – It sounds like Hollywood science-fiction. But a US man plans Sunday to ascend one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers using a bionic leg in a groundbreaking test of a new prosthetic limb that is controlled by mental impulses of the user, researchers said.
“With my standard prosthesis, I have to take every step with my good foot first and sort of lift or drag the prosthetic leg up,” said Zac Vawter, the 31-year-old test subject whose leg was amputated above the knee after a motorcycle accident three years ago.
On Sunday, Vawter will join 2,700 other people with normal legs in climbing up 103 flights of stairs to the top of the Willis Tower in Chicago in what will be both a test for the new bionic leg technology and a fundraiser for the research institute that produced it.
“With the bionic leg, it’s simple. I take stairs like I used to and can even take two at a time.”
Scientists have already created bionic hands and arms but Vawter’s artificial limb marks the first public test of a bionic leg using technology that links muscle tissue and nerve endings to translate electrical impulses from the brain into effective motor action for human bodies.
“We are hopeful that this neural-controlled technology will allow for more ability and more long-term independence” for people who have had lower limbs amputated, explained Levi Hargrove, a researcher at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) where the new leg was developed.
RIC developed the bionic leg with a grant from the US Defense Department and the Advanced Technology Research Center, an organization established to support the US Army and Air Force in developing medical technologies.
The RIC has worked with Vawter since 2009 and its Center for Bionic Medicine says it has created a one-of-a-kind artificial leg for him using a technique called “Targeted Muscle Reinnvervation” that will allow the limb to function in response to Vawter’s thoughts.
“The device reads his intent and pushes back on him, propelling him up,” the RIC said in a statement.
