STEER A WHEELCHAIR WITH A TONGUE PIERCING?

Monday, August 8, 2011

Researchers have tested a tongue piercing that will allow paralyzed people to steer their wheelchairs in any direction just by moving their tongue towards a specific direction (the chair will follow the direction of the tongue).

The initiative is being run by the Northwestern University School of Medicine. Thus far they have pierced the tongue of Martin Mireles, a former church youth leader who got shot in the neck. With the piercing, he was able to navigate his wheelchair through an obstacle course using his tongue.

Basically Mireles was pierced with a magnetic stud through his tongue. In order to make the wheelchair move, he had to wear a headset with sensors that could pick up the magnetic waves from the tongue ring. To go forward, he would move his tongue to the upper left corner of his mouth. Easy enough.

Why a tongue ring? Because researcher says the tongue doesn’t tire easily and is usually not affected by a spinal cord injury because its connected to the brain through the cranial nerve. And the tongue ring is more effective than when they glued a magnet to a test subject’s tongue (which would eventually fall off).

Source: http://www.ripleys.com/weird/daily-dose-of-weird-wtf-blog/body-oddity/steer-a-wheelchair-with-a-tongue-piercing/