American bioengineers have created a 6th finger that can be learned to manipulate in 1 minute (video)

The team trained people to use a robotic extra thumb and found that they could efficiently perform dexterous tasks, such as building a tower of blocks with one hand (now with two thumbs). Participants trained to use their thumb also increasingly felt it was part of their body, the researchers report in the Science Robotics journal.

Designer Dani Claude set out to develop a device, called the Third Thumb, as part of an award-winning Royal College of Arts degree project, aiming to redefine our view of prosthetics – from replacing lost function to expanding human body function. She was later invited to join Professor Tamar Makin's group of neuroscientists at UCL, who was investigating how the brain can adapt to body augmentation.

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"Body augmentation is a growing field aimed at extending our physical abilities, yet we lack a clear understanding of how our brains can adapt to it. By studying people using Dani’s cleverly-designed Third Thumb, we sought to answer key questions around whether the human brain can support an extra body part, and how the technology might impact our brain," said Professor Makin (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience), lead author of the study.

The Third Thumb is 3D-printed, making it easy to customize and it's worn on the side of the hand opposite the user's thumb, near the pinky finger. The user controls it with pressure sensors attached to the feet, on the underside of the big toes. Wirelessly connected to the big toe, both toe sensors monitor the different movements of the Thumb by immediately responding to subtle changes in the user's pressure.

For the study, 20 participants were trained to use the Thumb for five days, during which they were also encouraged to take the Thumb home each day after the training to use in their daily lives, for a total of two to six hours of wear per day. These participants were compared with an additional group of 10 control participants who wore a static version of the Thumb while undergoing the same training.

During the daily lab sessions, participants learned how to use their Thumb by focusing on tasks that helped improve the interaction between their hands and the Thumb, such as picking up multiple balls or wine glasses with one hand. They learned the basics of using their Thumb very quickly, and the training allowed them to successfully improve their movement control, dexterity and hand-Thumb coordination. Participants could even use the Thumb while they were distracted – building a wooden tower of blocks while doing a math problem – or blindfolded.

Designer Dani Claude (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Dani Claude Design), who was part of the main research team, said: "Our study shows that people can quickly learn to control an augmentation device and use it for their benefit, without overthinking. We saw that while using the Third Thumb, people changed their natural hand movements, and they also reported that the robotic thumb felt like part of their own body."

Before and after the training, the researchers scanned the participants' brains using fMRI while the participants moved their fingers individually (they did not wear the Thumb during the scanner). The researchers found subtle but significant changes in how the hand that had been augmented with a Third Thumb (but not the other hand) was represented in the sensorimotor cortex. Each finger is represented separately from the others in our brain; among study participants, the pattern of brain activity corresponding to each finger became more similar (less distinct).

A week later, some participants were re-scanned, and the changes in the brain's hand area had diminished, suggesting that the changes may not be long-term, although more research is needed to confirm this.

Earlier, a scientific laboratory was opened at a depth of 2,450 kilometers in the Mediterranean Sea.

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