José Sahel improved this technique, the institute’s director of vision of the Quinze-Vingts hospital in Paris. The computer is replaced by an electrode that connects directly into the eye. The images are taken by the camera present on the pair of glasses and send them directly to the microprocessor. The signal is sent directly to the optic nerve. No need to carry so many cables or over a computer. This discovery won him theAltran in 2007. Has still to be tested in people.The Voice technique would translate the images into sounds that the individual could translate. This concept is a kind of language for the deaf, but blind. It puts a code point then all sound. The lights correspond to strong sounds, unvoiced sounds and silences to more or less intense according to the distance that separates the individual. This system includes a pair of glasses equipped with a video camera, a digital assistant including The Voice software that translates images into sound.

This mechanism is far from ready as it does not cover allows the individual to a biased manner. The interest of this technique is that it is noninvasive and thus avoids any risk of infection compared with corneal implants or brain.

With age, men tend to lose their hearing. To remedy used numerous internal and external prosthesis to expand outside sound. But what can be done by people with severe deafness? So far the results are not good, sometimes the patient hears loud sounds (at the risk of splitting the eardrum). The solution is to put the amplifier inside the ear.

This requires a surgical procedure that allows deaf people to carry a normal life and reintegrate into a society where they are misunderstood. However, the intervention does not give a perfect ability to hear normal conversations but may not use sign language or having to make lip reading.

The clucks consists of hair cells that convert sounds into mechanical vibrations that are converted into electrical signals from auditory nerve. Each sound frequency is related to a type of hair cells. In the deaf, most of these cells are injured and can not transmit sound to the brain. To counter this deficiency, scientists entering the clucks a range of electrodes that will play the role of missing cells.

However, the electrodes can cause mechanical vibrations. No problem, researchers can put a kind of microphone behind the ear. This includes all sounds, which are treated by a vocal processor that the patient wears on his belt. The information returned to the microphone, which serves as the interpreter. The receiver at the implant restores information transmitted through the skin.

Finally, for women who want to give birth without knowing the drawbacks of pregnancy: varicose veins, fluid retention … and especially labor, will be delighted to know that it will soon be possible to use artificial wombs. A discovery that could allow infertile women or women who have undergone a hysterectomy know the joys of motherhood.

Female or male infertility in our society has increased for several reasons: pollutants, untreated infectious diseases … Several techniques have been developed, such as hormone injections or even by country, the belly is a rental means to have a natural child. These procedures are quite complicated and there are several ethical reasons why a part of society is against it.

The idea of creating an artificial womb is not new, in 1923, biologist John BS Haldane was the first to work on the ectogenesis outside the body of the mother. His studies continue to develop today. In 2002 in USA, Hung Ching Liu Helen managed to grow in vitro uterine cells from a patient in a biodegradable artificial support. Thus recreated uterine wall can keep embryos. To verify the feasibility of this artificial uterus, implanted embryos obtained by artificial insemination. They began to develop, however, his experiment was stopped the experiment after six days. The controversy was served.

Given this success, research has continued in mice. Scientists are divided, pitting two camps: those who see this aspect therapeutic technique,ie help sterile women who have undergone hysterectomy have children while others talk about moral and ethical issues.

Some women may only use this technique of pregnancy to avoid having to suffer all the changes to which the body is subjected others whose age was not allowed to have children may have them. In fact, there are unscrupulous doctors who inseminate sixty years for women who are mothers (and we have a case in Spain).

credit to: Suzanne Ortega

The brain is the most complex organ in the body, fascinating in its plasticity and its ability to control the whole body. Researchers working on their understanding in order to help people with major disabilities to someday lead a normal life. ”

“Arise and walk”, this famous phrase that Christ told Lazarus is the name of a European program that began in 2000 and led the professor PierreRabischong, a researcher at INSERM, Montpellier . The objective of this project is to develop a technological mechanism to help people who are paralyzed by a member to develop some motor skills.

The theory is simple enough, in a spinal cord injury completely disconnect all the nerves and the muscles below the injury, there is a paralysis of the limbs because the nerve impulses that the brain does not get released. The remedy is to incorporate a kind of second brain below the injury, how? Then placing a chip that stimulates the nerves with electrical impulses (as does the brain). This technique is known as electro-stimulation. This chip is connected to thelocomotor muscles and nerves through electrodes attached to steel wires covered with Teflon (to isolate). The processor sends electrical stimuli to nerves andagonists and antagonists (muscles are complementary to one member, one contracts while another relaxes). An outer box controls the invention through radio waves.

On March 17th, 2000, Marc Merger could take some steps, supported by crutches for the first time in ten years. A true message of hope for all disabled people. But this feat requires some assistance, can never be moved without crutches and have urinary difficulties, sexual and especially sensitive. To benefit from this technology, it is necessary for spinal injury has been made between the thoracic vertebrae 4 and 11. Further, the patient can not take advantage of the invention. Another obstacle: the price. The operation costs about twenty thousand euros.

Another discovery by the Japanese allow the elderly or individuals suffering from muscular failure to find a normal mobility: the exoskeleton or HLA (HybridAssistive Limb). The company Cyberdyne has developed a structure with some resemblance to Robocop . He wears a hundred receivers distributed across the surface. Detected on the skin minors still detectable nerve impulses created by muscle movement. Their detection allows activation of engines that will help the person to make his move normally more easily. The latest draft of the HLA range weighs just under 15 kilograms. Certainly there is light and comfortable.

But this technique raises some controversy because the U.S. military has developed this exoskeleton for his army. The aim is to multiply the strength of the soldier wearing it for seven, although it may seem like science fiction and what we have here.

Blindness affects millions of people around the world, both born as a result of an accident. Researchers are working on ways to enable the blind to find something like visual perception, at least sufficiently developed to facilitate simple acts of everyday life.

credit to: Suzanne Ortega

From pacemakers to hearing aids through artificial limbs. Technology has made so real feats of eliminating physical disabilities and disadvantages of people. “We are approaching the bionic man with whom he has always dreamed of science fiction?

For years, the biotechnology research works on the development of prosthetic devices that are capable of responding to the daily needs of people who wear them. Gone are the days of wooden legs and arms inert wax. Many businesses struggle to develop the next-generation prosthesis.

Associated since time immemorial to the war wounded, prostheses have never been able to replace the amputee limb function. It is very hard for people to “valid” get an idea of the difficulties to lead a “normal” life with one less member. You try to brush your teeth or dress with one hand. These seemingly trivial gestures are included in the daily struggle of people who lack a member.In 2001 there was a breakthrough in this field, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago began to experiment with slightly different prostheses, made of flexible materials, resistant and very practical. With the installation of a hydraulic system at the joints, these people started to perform complex movements with your arms. However, the real revolution of bionics is to perform many movements … governed by the brain.

In a press conference in Washington in 2006, Claudia Mitchell, whose left arm had been completely amputee following a motorcycle accident, was able to show that with his new prosthesis could grab a cup of coffee and take it to the mouth, also could browse through a book … All these familiar gestures are controlled in the same way it did before the accident, just think what you want done. Want to know how it works?

The electric motors of the prosthesis are driven by electrical signals sent by the brain to the muscles in the limb amputee. To enable the patient to perform several movements at once, at high speed, the guys from Chicago proved to be very resourceful. The damaged nerve endings innervating the arm tend to be directed to the chest. In this area, the researchers placed a series of electrodes that record neural impulses response throwing the motor cortex (center of the movement of our brain) to these nerve endings missing arm.

But how does the artificial limb to distinguish the type of information that is sent and the brain “? How will you know that it is necessary to the wrist, get this muscle, etc..? The manager is a processor capable of analyzing hundreds of electrical signals and send up to twenty possible moves to the prosthesis.

credit to: Suzanne Ortega

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