What happens to the brain body connection when one or the other is damaged? Adaptation is the answer, as it has always been. But today’s developing technologies provide new choices. One of them is to substitute one part or function for the damaged one. Thanks to brain plasticity, this can work quite well.
Take for example a situation where there’s paralysis. Researchers at Georgia Tech are developing a tool to augment a person’s mobility when it’s naturally limited. Mobility solutions for the disabled have been available for quite a while. Wheelchairs, for example.
But what about controlling a wheelchair or other device when brain body damage is extensive? The Georgia Tech guys are substituting the functions of the tongue, using it’s movements to steer or otherwise manipulate mobility devices like wheelchairs.
As it turns out, the tongue is a logical choice for at least a couple of reasons.
The tongue, though, is a more flexible, sensitive and tireless option. And like other facial muscles, its functions tend to be spared in accidents that can paralyze most of the rest of the body, because the tongue is attached to the brain, not the spinal cord.
But beyond the (usually) fortunate situation of spared tongue mobility, the brain body connection manifested in the human tongue offers the agility and coordination that make it a logical choice. And it’s not just the tongue itself, but the representation of the tongue in the brain maps that make for a huge advantage here. As Rush Dozier puts it in 2003’s Why We Hate
The brain map of a chimpanzee has a disproportionately large tongue because with the tongues chimpanzees produce a series of calls used to communicate with each other. The representation of the tongue on the surface of the human brain, however, is much larger. Our complex language, which depends on fantastically rapid and complicated movements of our tongue, is absolutely essential for our cooperation and survival. The human tongue takes up an especially large area of the cortex because it contains a denser and more complex network of nerves for the purpose of sensation and control.
The Georgia Tech project has a ways to go before it’s ready for the public. But it’s a promising start.
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