Misha Mahowald Prize for "The Bionic Arm" Team

For the development of an innovative bionic arm prosthesis, an international group of researchers with participation from Freiburg has been awarded the extremely prestigious Misha Mahowald Prize for neuromorphic technology. The electrode used in the award-winning work as an interface between technology and the body was developed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Stieglitz and his colleagues at the Institute of Microsystems Engineering.

By restoring sensory feedback from the limb to the brain, a patient with an arm amputation can develop a sense of touch as if the prosthesis were his or her own arm through biomimetic coding of electrical stimulation. This ability can greatly facilitate the user's control of the prosthesis and significantly improve other functions, such as grasping delicate objects.

The Misha Mahowald Prize has been awarded annually since 2016 for outstanding research in neuromorphic engineering. This year, the $10,000 prize money will be split between two teams.

"Biomimetic intraneural sensory feedback enhances sensation naturalness, tactile sensitivity, and manual dexterity in a bidirectional prosthesis." Neuron (2018) 100.1: 37-45,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2018.08.033