Restoring the Nervous System After Grievous Injury

There are multiple circumstances in which damage to the nervous system has historically meant a life sentence of degraded ability as, for example, with a spinal cord injury.  Another terrible injury is an amputation which too often is due to a military injury but this is where the research has been directed this time toward restoring a sense of touch to create sensitivity in artificial prosthesis.  (Science Daily:  Restoring the sense of touch in amputees using natural signals of nervous system)

Scientists at the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University have found a way to produce realistic sensations of touch in two human amputees by directly stimulating the nervous system.

The study, published Oct. 26 in Science Translational Medicine(STM), confirms earlier research on how the nervous system encodes the intensity, or magnitude, of sensations.  It is the second of two groundbreaking publications this month by University of Chicago neuroscientist Sliman Bensmaia, PhD, using neuroprosthetic devices to recreate the sense of touch for amputee or quadriplegic patients with a "biomimetic" approach that approximates the natural, intact nervous system.

- Science Daily

For someone in need, this is science which borders on the miraculous and it gets closer to reality almost by the day when this is the second advance by the same scientist this month.  In my life, I see heartbreakingly many veterans with this type of injury because I spend so much time at VA due to some afflictions of my own.  No-one else ever thinks about veterans except during parades or football games but the science is coming and there are no words for how deeply it is appreciated.

Every time I hear the 'click, click, click' as someone approaches me, I know without even seeing it's another vet who has had his or her legs blown off and I have seen far too many of both.  Injuries involving the arms are not so common but there are still many and likely many may never know who Sliman Bensmaia might be but always there will be gratitude for the things s/he does and the things s/he makes possible.

A similar situation is true due to motorcycle riding and my shoulder was heavily damaged in a motorcycle crash twenty-five years ago but it was not possible at that time to use an artificial prosthesis to replace the shoulder but in the intervening time that technology was discovered and my left shoulder was replaced.  That's one of many examples of the type of science we see from Sliman Bensmaia and why I get all the more furious regarding Facebook scientists talking of anti-vaxx when they're not even qualified to park a real scientist's car.  (Ithaka:  The Facebook Assault on Medical Research on Vaccination Science)

Note:  I can't use a male or female pronoun since I don't know if Sliman Bensmaia is a man or a woman and it's excellent in this context that it only has significance for the grammar.  Whoever you are, Sliman Bensmaia, thank you.

In the words of Sliman Bensmaia:

Without realistic, natural-feeling sensations, neuroprosthetics will never come close to achieving the dexterity of our native hands.  To illustrate the importance of touch, Bensmaia referred to a piano.  Playing the piano requires a delicate touch, and an accomplished pianist knows how softly or forcefully to strike the keys based on sensory signals from the fingertips.  Without these signals, the sounds the piano would make would not be very musical.

"The idea is that if we can reproduce those signals exactly, the amputee won't have to think about it, he can just interact with objects naturally and automatically.  Results from this study constitute a first step towards conveying finely graded information about contact pressure," Bensmaia said.

- Science Daily

I have no idea why others are nominated for sainthood but I do see one who is so much deserving of it although likely many may never know this person's name.