Humans can accurately sense the position, speed, and torque of their limbs, even with their eyes shut. This sense, known as proprioception, allows humans to precisely control their body movements.
May 30, 2018
0
49
New research led by Emory Healthcare, in partnership with the Veterans Health Administration, is shining a light on the need for better medical interventions and more aggressive treatment for veterans with peripheral artery ...
Apr 20, 2023
0
38
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown that there may finally be an alternative to amputation for patients suffering from chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI), the most severe form of peripheral ...
Mar 30, 2023
0
214
A multi-institutional team including Yale School of Medicine (YSM) has demonstrated the ability to use ultrasound to stimulate specific neurometabolic pathways in the body to prevent or reverse the onset of type 2 diabetes ...
Apr 5, 2022
0
107
MIT researchers have invented a new type of amputation surgery that can help amputees to better control their residual muscles and sense where their "phantom limb" is in space. This restored sense of proprioception should ...
Feb 15, 2021
0
91
After a limb amputation, brain areas responsible for movement and sensation alter their functional communication. This is the conclusion of a new study published today in Scientific Reports. According to the authors, from ...
Feb 22, 2019
0
20
A new surgical technique devised by MIT researchers could allow prosthetic limbs to feel much more like natural limbs. Through coordination of the patient's prosthetic limb, existing nerves, and muscle grafts, amputees would ...
May 31, 2017
0
21
New research has shown a protein that controls the growth of new blood vessels could potentially reduce the effects of cardiovascular disease in patients' legs, including risks of leg ulcers, gangrene, and amputation.
Nov 3, 2014
1
1
As the human body fine-tunes its neurological wiring, nerve cells often must fix a faulty connection by amputating an axon—the "business end" of the neuron that sends electrical impulses to tissues or other neurons. It ...
May 23, 2013
0
0
Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic illness afflicting an estimated 26 million Americans. ...
Apr 25, 2013
0
0
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for such problems. A special case is the congenital amputation, a congenital disorder, where fetal limbs have been cut off by constrictive bands. In some countries, amputation of the hands or feet is or was used as a form of punishment for people who committed crimes. Amputation has also been used as a tactic in war and acts of terrorism; it may also occur as a war injury. In some cultures and religions, minor amputations or mutilations are considered a ritual accomplishment. Unlike some non-mammalian animals (such as lizards that shed their tails, salamanders that can regrow many missing body parts, and hydras, flatworms, and starfish that can regrow entire bodies from small fragments), once removed, human extremities do not grow back, unlike portions of some organs, such as the liver. A transplant or a prosthesis are the only options for recovering the loss.
In the US, the majority of new amputations occur due to complications of the vascular system (of or pertaining to the blood vessels), especially from diabetes. Between 1988 and 1996, there was an average of 133,735 hospital discharges for amputation per year in the US. .
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
