Can the Human Brain Support an Extra Body Part?
The Third Thumb is a 3D printed thumb extension for your hand, controlled by your feet, designed by Dani Clode. The project investigates the relationship between the body and prosthetic technology in new ways. The third thumb is part tool, part experience, and part research; a model by which we better understand human response to artificial extensions.
Dani Clode was invited to join Professor Tamar Makin’s team of neuroscientists at UCL who studied investigating how the brain can adapt to body augmentation. The team trained people to use the robotic extra thumb and found 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 participants’ brains using fMRI and the researchers found subtle but significant changes to how the hand that had been augmented with the Third Thumb. A week later, some of the participants were scanned again, and the changes in their brain’s hand area had subsided, suggesting the changes might not be long-term, although more research is needed to confirm this.
“ Evolution hasn’t prepared us to use an extra body part, and we have found that to extend our abilities in new and unexpected ways, the brain will need to adapt the representation of the biological body.”
Why this matters
Body augmentation is a growing field aimed at extending our physical abilities. The study shows that people can quickly learn to control an augmentation device and use it for their benefit, without overthinking. The study shows the value of neuroscientists working closely together with designers and engineers.