Movement skills are growing thanks to the integration between man and technology
11 May 2022 - It was 1963 and on number 3 of the "Amazing Spider-Man" magazine, a Marvel Comics comic book created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the super criminal and nuclear scientist made his debut Doctor. octopus, one of Spider-Man's most famous adversaries. "Octopus" owes its name to four enormously powerful mechanical tentacles extended from its back and fully integrated with the body. From that distant and unreal image, today the boundary between man and machine no longer seems so defined but carries with it the fears and potential of the time. Advances in technology and neuroscience have added to the human body artificial limbs, wearables or robotic tools to increase their movement capabilities. This is what emerges from the study published in Nature Communications conducted by a team from dall 'University of Freiburg, Prof. Carsten Mehring, from Imperial College of London, prof. Etienne Burdet and prof. Dario Farinate, together with researchers fromUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma.
We move from the conception of biomedical technology intended as an instrument for the artificial replacement of functions lost in the patient, to "Human Augmentation" which intends to use the same technological tools to increase the movement capacity of a healthy subject. "Since the early stages of our evolution, humans have developed tools that increase our body's ability to perform certain functions and act on the environment, such as the knife to cut or the hammer to beat. With practice in the using the instrument, the brain learns to consider and control it as part of its own body – explains prof. Giovanni Di Pino, Professor of Human Physiology UCBM and responsible for the NeXTlab - the first primordial tool can be considered the origin of the technology”.
In the context of NIMA European project - "Non-invasive Interfaces for Movement Augmentation", the team of neuroscientists and bioengineers designs, builds and tests interfaces that allow people to control supernumerary robotic limbs in coordination with their natural limbs. These technologies are co-developed with the human body to fine-tune physiological control, sensory feedback, and motion learning from the outset to function as a whole in multiple application scenarios.
The topic of Human Augmentation raises important ethical questions. This includes potential concerns that technology could negatively affect natural motor function, change individuals' body identity and image, reinforce inequalities, or pose problems in assigning responsibilities as the line between humans and technology becomes increasingly blurred. "We believe that these and other important ethical issues must therefore be addressed in a multidisciplinary approach that combines neuroscience and technology with philosophical, legal and safety aspects. An inhuman transhumanization should not be feared, but the ethics of augmentation must be managed in the best possible way ways because it is not the boundaries of the body or of our mind that define us as men, but the ethical boundaries of our rational and responsible action" said prof. Di Pino.
Thus the questions already told in the science fiction of the 60s resurface but as real issues to be faced and managed, without letting fear prevail for the potential but always guiding the impact from the point of view of science for the person.
