Pedro Da Luz Moscardo De Souza
MYP5A
Neuroprosthetics
A shining innovation in the world of healthcare, biomedical engineering and neuroscience.
The nervous system is one of the most important parts of the human body, it sends the signals and transmissions through your body which are essential for all movement, cognitive abilities and processes in the body. Without a nervous system, you would infallibly die with absolute certainty. Additionally any harm to the nervous system, whether it be minor or a life threatening spinal cord injury. There are ways in which those issues can be dealt with along with improving the way scientific and medicinal disciplines help save lives and keep people healthy and in a reasonable quality of life.
One of those ways has been steadily improving and is being researched on yearly to improve our medical and neuroscientific abilities and knowledge. Neuroprosthetics is that way.
Neural prosthetics are devices which are intended to replace or enhance the performance and abilities of defective or normal systems and parts of the human body. Neuroprosthetics aims to aid impaired functions such as cognitive functions or sensory functions. These devices take advantage of neurosciences to advance prosthetic capabilities and better implement those devices in the human body.
Any damage to the nervous system and brain cortexes is an immensely serious problem to the survival, quality of life and health of a human being.
These devices could aid humanity’s progress in prosthetics, modern biomedical engineering and human capabilities. Furthermore neuroprosthetics being used for limb loss could improve quality of life for amputees worldwide.
The main factors and issues which a engineer and the use of neuroprosthetics for limb loss would have to face would be cost, damage/how invasive the device would be, implementing the device successfully and having it be resistant/least amount of replacement needed as possible.
If somebody was to replace a leg that was lost, there would be several problems which would be necessary to be dealt with. The prosthetics need to be in an exact fit, in order not to damage other objects to be implemented and the area surrounding. The user of the prosthetic will need to learn to use the prosthetic for daily tasks such as walking a flight of stairs. The prosthetics should also be as comfortable as possible for the user. Each of the components of the prosthetic attachment are integral in making sure the replacement is to the highest standard and comfort for the amputee.
This isn't just a small problem either, there are 2.1 million people living with limbs missing just in the U.S, who all have to pay thousands of dollars for medical care, not to mention taxes and the expenses which medical facilities have to pay themselves to operate hundreds of limb loss related procedures every day. Limb loss is a monumental problem worldwide.
There are several ways modern science is able to deal with limb loss through prosthesis, sometimes through simple cables connected to unharmed parts of the body, sometimes through motors activated via switches and one of the most advanced techniques allows amputees to move voluntarily by the amputee’s will due to the prosthetics having arrays of electrodes ready to receive and interpret electrical signals from muscles. Neuroprosthetics is very similar to the latter, neuroprosthetics uses electrodes and uses electrical signals from neurons in the brain to operate and complete functions in a prosthesis as a replacement of organs and parts of the human body which do those functions. Example: a cochlear implant which replaces important parts of hearing and the ear with neuroprosthetic implants.
Neuroprosthetics in limb replacement could greatly improve the lives of amputees but along with that come several issues and implications.
Cost: Neuroprosthetic implants so far have been proven to be significantly costly, not to mention all other expenses patients have to pay for if they are getting their medical care in a country like the United States where healthcare can be an extreme financial burden, especially if not dealt with insurance. Just a cochlear implant can cost up to 100,000 dollars. It would be difficult to reduce these costs since neuroprosthetic interfaces are complex, very specific, fine tuned and expensive. To have relatively cheap and accessible neuroprosthetic limb implants, medical companies would have to find ways to manufacture in a more cheap way, medical fines would have to lower and bringing a new device into the market would also have to get approved by the FDA. Getting past FDA would mean going through regulations, costly processes and several other tasks. This process usually takes up to about 7 years. In general, since a prosthetic leg can cost from $5,000 – $50,000 and a common neuroprosthetic implant like a cochlear implant can cost up to 100,000 dollars, it can be inferred that neuroprosthetic limb replacement will be difficult to bring to the market and it will most certainly not be very affordable and accessible for lower income patients and less financially secure amputees. Lastly, improper reimbursement policies also slow down the general process of bringing a new device like a neuroprosthetic leg. Solving even just one of these issues, would be a gigantic step towards the future of prosthetics and healthcare worldwide.
In its most ideal form, neuroprosthetic limb replacements should function in a way which not only enables movements and replaces limbs, but should also provide the amputee safety, comfort and improve their health. To ensure this, these implants should be up to certain standards and qualities. Some of those major qualities and standards are:
Stimulating the nervous system and taking and using neural signals for use in high quality and efficient performance.
Keeping the interface as non-invasive, least harmful and biocompatible as possible.
-The brain is an integral part of the human body, which is necessary for human life. The nervous system and the brain are relatively fragile and any harm or damage to those systems can lead to severe medical consequences to a human. An otherwise perfectly healthy strong you man could develop a life threatening condition or a disease which severely affects his quality of life in a matter of days due to nervous system of brain damage. Neuroprosthetic interfaces are operated with electrodes which stimulate and receive. These interfaces are set in the tissue of the host in desired locations for connections. To have the implanted device be as non-invasive and as biocompatible as possible, the device should output non-harmful currents in tissue to avoid causing irreversible damage to tissue or the nervous system of the host. Size is also highly significant in biomedical safety with implants of this type. Pushing boundaries and limits when operating in the human body can lead to unprecedented harm to tissue which can be even harder to treat and would worsen the already gargantuan expenses of such an implant in the human body. These issues are solved by science and engineering by maintaining a safe amount of current, carefully deciding the size and use of the implant, and even how the device will be implanted in the first place.
The amount of people in the U.S living with a type of limb loss is predicted to double by 2050 and the current number of people in the U.S living with limb loss is 2.1 million. There is already a large market and leeway for biomedical engineering, prosthesis and neuroprosthetics to innovate in medical devices and other tools to aid amputees. Although the market is definitely not a “cheap and easy” one. Prices for most normal prosthetic device implants presently already reach up to the tens of thousands of dollars, neuroprosthetic implants can get even more expensive along with all other medical expenses which would take place with any medical procedure of this scale and within this context. Additionally, neuroprosthetics will have to deal with more extreme measures such as spinal cord injuries which to be dealt with in medical procedures usually cost several hundred thousands of dollars yearly for patients.
Overall the manufacturing, design and use of these devices makes these devices very inaccessible for lower income patients/households and more difficult to obtain for amputees without risking severe financial consequences for themselves
On the other hand, neural prosthesis research and advances also show great economic opportunities marketwise. The Global Neuroprosthetics Market is expected surpass a value higher than $10.48 billion dollars by the year 2023. There are several factors which have been leading up to this. The astounding predictions for the ever-growing number of amputations, amputees and people who are being treated for diseases that can lead (indirectly) to amputation such as Diabetes. Along with these factors, there are even more external factors which are less related to interdisciplinary matters in medicine and neural sciences. One of those factors is the large amount of developing economies which have been recently finding rapid economic growth and large increase in opportunities. Business in those economies might take advantage of neuroprosthetics. From 2008 to the present, several economies have been developing further and have been rising much higher above in development and business growth. Many of those economies are situated in latin america and asia. Where a lot of countries are still developing in many aspects, although some of those countries have been rapidly growing at unprecedented levels. Many of these economies may soon be able to take advantage of these advanced disciplines in neuroscience and biomedical engineering and bring innovation to the world of healthcare.
In conclusion, based on my research I believe that neuroprosthetics is a very promising discipline which I predict has the potential to help emerging economies, improve the quality of life for amputees, bring impactful research and major innovation in a fundamental interdisciplinary way into biomedical engineering and neuroscience. I believe that if neuroscience continues its steady growth and innovation, it will be able to overcome most of the issues facing neuroprosthesis and it will be able to use the solutions which I mentioned throughout the essay. Although I find that all of the solutions and processes will be extremely costly, as they are in most large ongoing scientific and medical disciplines which are being researched and improved are. I personally find neurprosthcicis very pormisng and it is exciting that humanity is progressing towards a way to improve the quality of life of people who have lost their limbs. There also may be ethical and socio economic implications if neuroprosthetics succeeded in its goals, what may be the radical changes which will happen to the world as limb loss and amputees are “dealt with”?