Unlike all other applications covered on these pages, the INTER project aims at developing an interface between a peripheral nerve and a computer chip. Such an application would, for example, be helpful for someone who lost a limb in an accident. The nerve cells, in these cases, can be perfectly intact. So all that is needed to make a neuroprosthesis work in such a person is a technology to connect the prosthesis to the remaining part of the injured nerve (more).
The key task in this application is to develop a neurosensor, which has to record the activity of the peripheral nerve (more). A prototype and a scheme of the INTER project's neurosensor can be seen in the pictures. The recorded signals are then processed, in this case by an artificial neural network and can afterwards be used to remote the prosthesis.
In an extension, one could even imagine a neuroprosthesis equipped with sensors. Tactile information could then be fed back into the peripheral nerve system and the user would have a real artificial limb with all its natural capabilities.