09.2018 | THE SCIENTIST 21CREDIT LINECREDIT LINE
capability of several different subjects
to get a reasonable sense of hand posi-
tion from this illusion,” says Dustin Tyler,
a biomedical engineer at Case Western
Reserve University who was not involved
in the work. He adds that while this is a
ne w, noninvasive approach to proprio-
ception, he and others are also working
on devices that restore this sense by stim-
ulating nerves directly with implanted
devices (Sci Rep, 8:9866, 2018).
Marasco and his colleagues then melded
the vibration with the movement-controlled
prostheses, so that when participants decided
to move their artificial limbs, a vibrating stim-
ulus was applied to the muscles to provide
them with proprioceptive feedback. When
the subjects conducted various movement-related tasks with this new system, their per-
formance significantly improved (Sci Transl
Med, 10:eaao6990, 2018).
“This was an extremely thorough set of
experiments,” says Marcia O’Malley, a bio-
medical engineer at Rice University who
did not take part in that study. “I think it
is really promising.”
Although the mechanisms behind the
illusion largely remain a mystery, Mar-
asco says, the vibrations may be activat-
ing specific muscle receptors that provide
the body with a sense of movement. Inter-
estingly, he and his colleagues have found
that the “sweet spot” vibration frequency
for movement perception is nearly iden-
tical in humans and rats—about 90 Hz
(PLOS ONE, 12:e0188559, 2017).
For Kitts, a system that provides pro-
prioceptive feedback means being able
to use her prosthetic without constantly
watching it—and feeling it instead. “It’s
whole new level of having a real part of your
body,” she says. —Diana KwonAvian
Aromatherapy
Male European starlings—small, green-
ish-black birds with a hint of irides-
cence—may not be much to look at. But
they do like to add a little flourish to their
nests: fresh herbs. Originally considered
a strategy for attracting a mate, the use of
aromatics in nest building is now thought
to have an additional role in keeping baby
starlings healthy.
“People have proposed that the birds
add the herbs to their nests because they
improve the fitness of their offspring,” says
Juan Vicente Gallego Rubalcaba, a biol-
ogist at Rey Juan Carlos University in
Madrid who studies the adaptive strate-
gies of birds. Indeed, studies have shown
that starlings raised in herbed dwellings
tend to fare better—having fewer para-
sites and weighing more—than youngsters
brought up in nonherbed nests.Light your way.
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The fi rst time I felt
the sense of movement
was remarkable.
—Amanda Kitts