Meet Magnus, the cyborg Olympian with an implanted bionic arm

More than a decade ago, Magnus was diagnosed with a tumour and had his right arm amputated. Following a novel prosthetics surgery in 2013 that integrated electrodes to his own nerves and muscle, and anchored the new arm directly to his bone, the Swede can operate machinery in his day job as a truck driver, tie his children’s shoelaces, unpack eggs and now compete for Sweden in the first “cyborg Olympics”. “I don’t feel handicapped since I got this arm”, Magnus said in a release from Chalmers University. The prosthesis doesn’t feel like a machine, but more like my own arm.” Magnus was the first recipient of a prosthetic implanted directly to the body using a technique called osseointegration, devised by associate professor Rickard Brånemark and colleagues at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, and powered using technology trialled by Max Ortiz Catalan and colleagues at Chalmers University of Technology. In addition, we are including direct neural sensory feedback in the prosthetic arm so the patient can intuitively feel with it.” This ability to “feel”, through different degrees of pressure, is how Magnus can grip objects so carefully with the prosthetic hand.