Marvel at the hand.
Capable of moving in some 20 independent ways, it contains about 20 muscles and 20 nerve types and is operated by another 20 muscles in the forearm. Indeed, the instrument is so complex that only recently have engineers developed affordable machines with enough sensors, actuators, and computing power to study it in detail.
As a result, researchers still know relatively little about such basic functions as how the fingerpad receives tactile information and routes that data to the brain. A better understanding of how the hand works, however, could aid the diagnosis and treatment of conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome. More data is also key to robotic hands, and to software that allows us to touch and feel virtual objects generated by a computer.
Introducing MIT's Touch Lab. In addition to exploring the basic science behind the hand, the scientists there are applying their results to high-tech systems like virtual reality for surgical simulations in which the user can "see, touch and feel" the tissues involved. Another application: a microscope for imaging what happens at the fingertip when we touch something. Such systems, in turn, allow further experiments for gleaning that much more about how the hand works. For example, robotic devices developed in the lab are used to apply controlled stimuli to the hands of human subjects in experiments to study perception.
"We want to understand the overall perceptual capabilities of the human hand and sense of touch, as well as the underlying mechanisms," said Mandayam A. Srinivasan, director of the Laboratory for Human and Machine Haptics (the facility's formal name). Dr. Srinivasan holds appointments through MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) and Department of Mechanical Engineering.
TOUCH LAB RESEARCH
Touch Lab research falls into three broad categories: human haptics (the
latter term describes all aspects of hands and how
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Contact: Elizabeth Thomson
thomson@mit.edu
617-258-5402
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
18-Mar-1999