Dear Colleagues,

When was the first bionic human born?

Every 10 years or so, cyclically in the media, there is the birth of “new” bionic human, thanks to innovations in sectors such as electronics, computer science, mechanics, new materials in the prosthetic field, which lead to the appearance of new components and thus the birth of a “new first bionic man”. To date, however, despite the gradual steps forward, from a functional point of view, we are still very far from the performance of natural limbs. In fact, to have a “true bionic man”, it is not enough to have new devices that are increasingly performing with small and artificial intelligence functionality; in order to have a real embodiment, our brain must consider an artificial limb as a natural limb, and therefore, we must use the same language for all parts of the body, whether natural or artificial. In this field, little progress has been made in the prosthetic field in recent decades; in fact, almost all prosthetic devices still use myoelectric signals as a human–machine interface, which are unidirectional and therefore able to transmit commands to the prosthesis, but not to receive sensory information. It is thanks to the sensorial feedback that complete integration of the prosthetic device is obtained; it is therefore a matter of moving from the use of myoelectric signals to neuro electric signals, using both efferent and afferent fibers. It is certainly a very complex issue on which it is still important to invest in research, and the idea of ​​a few decades ago to create a “neural connector” capable of bi-directionally interfacing an electronic device with a nerve is still very topical. Research is important, but the role of the companies that have to fill the gap between the research and the final user is fundamental, as only through them can an experimental device be produced on a large scale and will it bring real benefits for disabled people. To achieve this, companies have to be more involved in research from the very first experiments so that they can give their contribution in terms of feasibility and sustainability of the whole process.

Dr. Angelo Davalli
Guest Editor

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• prosthetics
• neural feedback
• bionic
• rehabilitation team
• embodiment
• companies’ engagement