Humans may evolve into cyborgs with ‘tweezer-like’ bionic tools for hands, new study suggests

THE next step in human evolution could see us further integrate technology with flesh and bone.

But it might surprise some that the technology may not emulate human features like today’s prosthetics, according to a new study.

Ottavia Maddaluno

Neuroscientists have found that people actually feel more connected to “tweezer-like” bionic tools than grafts that resemble human hands.

Using virtual reality (VR), researchers tested whether humans could feel like the tweezer claw was a part of their own body.

Participants could successfully embody a “bionic tool” and a prosthetic hand with equal degrees.

However, people were faster and more accurate at virtually completing tasks with the tweezer-hands than when they used a human hand.

“For our biology to merge seamlessly with tools, we need to feel that the tools are part of our body,” said Ottavia Maddaluno, neuroscientist at the Sapienza University of Rome and first author of the study.

“Our findings demonstrate that humans can experience a grafted tool as an integral part of their own body.”

The study was conducted alongside the Santa Lucia Foundation IRCCS with fellow neuroscientist Viviana Betti.

The pair believe participants identified more with the tweezer-hands because of their simplicity.

Having just two prongs, as opposed to five fingers, might make tasks easier for the brain to compute.

“In terms of the pinching task, the tweezers are functionally similar to a human hand, but simpler, and simple is also better computationally for the brain,” Maddaluno added.

A sense of “uncanny valley” – the eerie feeling a human-like robotic object evokes – may have also bruised the human-resembling hand’s chances, researchers noted.

The next step is to study if these bionic tools could be embodied in patients that have lost limbs.

Ottavia Maddaluno, neuroscientist at the Sapienza University of Rome

“The next step is to study if these bionic tools could be embodied in patients that have lost limbs,” explained Maddaluno.

“We also want to investigate the plastic changes that this kind of bionic tool can induce in the brains of both healthy participants and amputees.”

Putting tweezers to the test

The tasks started as simple, involving the popping of bubbles by a specific colour.

As they grew in difficulty, participants were asked to identify which fingers – or prongs – were being stimulated by small vibrations applied by researchers while being distracted by flickering light.

“This is an index of how much of a mismatch there is in your brain between what you feel and what you see,” explained Maddaluno.

“But this mismatch could only happen if your brain thinks that what you see is part of your own body.

“If I don’t feel that the bionic tool that I’m seeing through virtual reality is part of my own body, the visual stimulus should not give any interference.”

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