Research Directions

Following Montreal, we each returned to our original research and began to investigate further. My intentions seemed to lead away from my original inventor Faraday. After some deliberation, I focused on Luigi Galvani. His research proved to be far more intruiging - as he wasn't entirely certain what he was dealing with and his experiments concerning bioelectricity and the relationship between physical movement and electric signals was much more alligned with my intrests.

In the course of my research of Galvani, two significant phenomenon emerged: chronobiology and biofeedback. Cronobiology is the study of the natural cycles within organisms - circadian rythms, menstrual cycles, migration patters, etc etc. This is particulairly intresting because it deals with an organisms responses to pressures / forces in thier immediate environment.

Biofeedback is the process in which an individual gains information about their biological functions - blood pressure, body temperature, muscle tension, etc etc - and then attempts to alter these processes using perscribed exercises, gauging the bodys response using the aformentioned sensors. Biofeedback has significant medicinal uses ranging from stress reduction to prosthetics [shown below]. It is of intrest to note that nearly all of these sensors deal directly with the surface of the skin, tapping into such things as temperature, conductance created by sweat, and electrical impulses generated by muscles moving underneath the skins surface.

The prosthetics are of particular intrests, as myoelectric control directly links electrical impulses with muscle movement - artificial movement generate from the body's contained electrical energies. When this relationship between electrical impulses and produced mechanical movementis applied to the musculo-skeletal structure of the human body, things become particulairly intresting...