Long-term decoding of movement force and direction with a wireless myoelectric implant.

Objective: The ease of use and number of degrees of freedom of current myoelectric hand prostheses is limited by the information content and reliability of the surface electromyography (sEMG) signals used to control them. For example, cross-talk limits the capacity to pick up signals from small or deep muscles, such as the forearm muscles for distal arm amputations, or sites of targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR) for proximal amputations. Here we test if signals recorded from the fully implanted, induction-powered wireless Myoplant system allow long-term decoding of continuous as well as discrete movement parameters with better reliability than equivalent sEMG recordings.

Universal application-specific integrated circuit for bioelectric data acquisition.

Use of highly integrated application specific circuits (ASICs) in bioelectric data acquisition systems promise important new insights into the origin of a large variety of health problems by providing light-weight, low-power, low-cost medical measurement devices that allow long-term studies. They also promise significant cost reduction in medical care, as patients in principle become mobile and do not have to be hospitalized for observation. We report on the development and successful implementation of a universal ASIC, designed to meet key characteristics of a broad variety of bioelectric signals in terms of their dynamic range, sampling rate and input referred noise; e.