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Individual fingers can be moved with the help of a mind-controlled prosthetic arm. This has been achieved by physicians and biomedical engineers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, according to HNGN.

Earlier, scientists created a tiny, bionic spine aiming to allow people to control prosthetic limbs with the help of their subconscious thoughts.

The study was published in the Feb. 10 issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering.

The participant was not losing a limb, yet the device used a brain-mapping process that could bypass the control of his limb. Scientists believe that the technology might help those who do not have an arm or a hand.

"We believe this is the first time a person using a mind-controlled prosthesis has immediately performed individual digit movements without extensive training," Nathan Crone, senior author of the study, said in a press release. "This technology goes beyond available prostheses, in which the artificial digits, or fingers, moved as a single unit to make a grabbing motion, like one used to grip a tennis ball."

The team mapped and tracked some parts of the subject's brain with an array of 128 electrode sensors. They located those parts which are responsible for moving every finger. Later, they programmed the prosthetic arm to move the fingers.

By also measuring the patient's brain activity that was part of tactile sensation, with the help of a glove that had small vibrating buzzers activated on each fingertip, the scientists could identify the unique brain activity for every finger.

Collecting the motor and sensory data made the team program the prosthetic arm to activate specific fingers. The arm was linked to the patient's brain through electrodes, and could follow the electric activity in the brain, apart from moving his fingers through this analysis.

"The electrodes used to measure brain activity in this study gave us a better resolution of a large region of cortex than anything we've used before and allowed for more precise spatial mapping in the brain," said Guy Hotson, lead author of the study. "This precision is what allowed us to separate the control of individual fingers."

At first, the accuracy of the limb was 76 percent, but by attaching the ring and pinky fingers, it shot up to 88 percent.

"The part of the brain that controls the pinkie and ring fingers overlaps, and most people move the two fingers together," Crone said. "It makes sense that coupling these two fingers improved the accuracy."

However, the practical application will take years of resources, research and brain mapping.