this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
347 points (98.1% liked)
Videos
18162 readers
930 users here now
For sharing interesting videos from around the Web!
Rules
- Videos only (aside from meta posts flagged with [META])
- Follow the global Mastodon.World rules and the Lemmy.World TOS while posting and commenting.
- Don't be a jerk
- No advertising
- No political videos, post those to !politicalvideos@lemmy.world instead.
- Avoid clickbait titles. (Tip: Use dearrow)
- Link directly to the video source and not for example an embedded video in an article or tracked sharing link.
- Duplicate posts may be removed
- AI generated content must be tagged with "[AI] …" ^Discussion^
Note: bans may apply to both !videos@lemmy.world and !politicalvideos@lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Those usually aren't nerve controlled. If you have a stump left of the lower arm, sensors can detect muscle movement, and clenching your hand does move some muscles in your lower arm close to the elbow.
Source: My dad had a prosthetic left arm. His stump was similar to the ones in this video.
I don't know if these are or aren't nerve controlled, I suspect it's going by the muscle movement you described
But let's assume they are in fact controlled by nerves
Most of the movement of your fingers actually comes from muscles in your forearm pulling on tendons that go into your fingers.
So assuming you wanted to hook a prosthetic up to the same nerves and such you'd have used for your real fingers, you'd still probably end up flexing your forearm muscles because that's where those nerves go
Technically all prosthetics are "nerve controlled", but what you are describing is called nerve integration. Which is possible, but very rare and mostly experimental when it comes to prosthetics.
What she is wearing is called a myoelectric prosthetic, and they have been around since the late 70s. The myoelectric sensors require a healthy muscle group that the user can activate by flexing. This is a problem with a lot of amputees, as some may be missing from traumatic amputations, and the rest tend to attrify over time.
Myoelectric prosthetic are not reflexive, and you do have to consciously flex the individual muscles to make the terminal end device function in a specific way, and it does take a lot of concentration and practice.
Yeah, you can see her arm moving as she flexes the muscles.