VSP Blog » disabled http://vspblog.com Daily peek at eyecare Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:00:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Developing: Artificial muscle promises to restore the ability to blink, most likely will progress to winking ;-) http://vspblog.com/2010/02/25/developing-artificial-muscle-promises-to-restore-the-ability-to-blink-most-likely-will-progress-to-winking/ http://vspblog.com/2010/02/25/developing-artificial-muscle-promises-to-restore-the-ability-to-blink-most-likely-will-progress-to-winking/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:00:29 +0000 Vernon D. http://vspblog.com/?p=2800 eye blink illustrationVery interesting stuff. EPAM – Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscle, is currently working its way to human implantation (within 5 years). From the article:

Surgeons from UC Davis Medical Center have demonstrated that artificial muscles can restore the ability of patients with facial paralysis to blink, a development that could benefit the thousands of people each year who no longer are able to close their eyelids due to combat-related injuries, stroke, nerve injury or facial surgery.

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For people with other types of paralysis, the use of artificial muscles could someday mean regaining the ability to smile or control the bladder. Reanimating faces is a natural first step in developing synthetic muscles to control other parts of the body, said UC Davis otolaryngologist Craig Senders.

If you have the slightest interest in medical technology or just want to see how hard researchers are working – I HIGHLY recommend reading this article. Go humans!

Read full article HERE.

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