{"id":122960,"date":"2021-05-24T11:22:55","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T18:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/robotic-third-thumb-use-can-alter-brain-representation-of-the-hand"},"modified":"2021-05-24T11:22:55","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T18:22:55","slug":"robotic-third-thumb-use-can-alter-brain-representation-of-the-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/robotic-third-thumb-use-can-alter-brain-representation-of-the-hand","title":{"rendered":"Robotic \u2018Third Thumb\u2019 use can alter brain representation of the hand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/robotic-third-thumb-use-can-alter-brain-representation-of-the-hand2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Using a robotic \u2018Third Thumb\u2019 can impact how the hand is represented in the brain, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.<\/p>\n<p>The team trained people to use a robotic extra <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/thumb\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">thumb<\/a> and found they could effectively carry out dextrous tasks, like building a tower of blocks, with one hand (now with two thumbs). The researchers report in the journal <i>Science Robotics<\/i> that participants trained to use the thumb also increasingly felt like it was a part of their body.<\/p>\n<p>Designer Dani Clode began developing the device, called the Third Thumb, as part of an award-winning graduate project at the Royal College of Art, seeking to reframe the way we view prosthetics, from replacing a lost function, to an extension of the human body. She was later invited to join Professor Tamar Makin\u2019s team of neuroscientists at UCL who were investigating how the <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/brain\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">brain<\/a> can adapt to body augmentation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using a robotic \u2018Third Thumb\u2019 can impact how the hand is represented in the brain, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The team trained people to use a robotic extra thumb and found they could effectively carry out dextrous tasks, like building a tower of blocks, with one hand (now with two thumbs). [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":544,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1499,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-cyborgs","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/544"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}