BIO

Tamar Makin is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University and the leader of the Plasticity Lab www.plasticity-lab.com. Her main interest is in understanding how our body representation changes in the brain (brain plasticity). Her primary model for this work is studying hand function and dysfunction, with a focus on how we could use technology to increase hand functionality in able and disabled individuals at all ages. Tamar was awarded several career development fellowships to establish her research programme on brain plasticity at the University of Oxford, first as Research Fellow (2009) and later as a Principle Investigator (2014). She joined the faculty of UCL in 2016 where she became a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience (2019), and moved to Cambridge in 2022 to continue her work. She has been supported by the European Research Council (Starting and Consolidator Grants; deferred to UKRI), the Wellcome Trust (Henry Dale and Senior Research Fellow), the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, in addition to the UK Medical Research Council. 

 

ABSTRACT

Homo Cyberneticus: Neurocognitive embodiment of artificial limbs

Tamar Makin, University of Cambridge

To successfully design devices for the human body, engineers often view the body itself as the ideal design template. Similarly, for individuals missing a limb, the development of artificial prosthetic limbs often centers on embodiment as the goal: focusing device design and control on becoming more like our biological bodies. But neurocognitive resources might differ radically, depending on the user’s life experiences and needs. Here I will present a series of studies where we investigated the neural basis of artificial limb use for both substitution and augmentation technologies. We find that contrary to folk wisdom, the brain does not assimilate neural representations for the artificial limb with those for the biological body, creating opportunities for novel technological interfaces. Collectively, these studies suggest that although, in principle, opportunities exist for harnessing hand neural and cognitive resources to control artificial limbs, alternative non-biomimetic approaches could be also well suited for successful human-device interface.  

Relevant references:

Schone, H.R., Maimon Mor, R.O., Kollamkulam, M., Gerrand, C., Woollard, A., Kang, N.V., Baker, C.I., and Makin, T.R. (2025). Stable Cortical Body Maps Before and After Arm Amputation. Nature Neuroscience
Makin, T.R., Micera, S., and Miller, L.E. (2022). Neurocognitive and motor-control challenges for the realization of bionic augmentation. Nature Biomedical Engineering 
Kieliba P, Clode D, Maimon-Mor R, Makin TR. (2021) Robotic hand augmentation impacts neural body representation. Science Robotics 

 

The Third Thumb (Dani Clode Design) is a robotic augmentation device, designed to extend hand motor abilities.