Study suggests future portable prosthetic devices for movement-impairedResearchers have successfully reconstructed 3-D hand motions from brain signals recorded in a non-invasive way, according to a study in the March 3 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. This finding uses a technique that may open new doors for portable brain-computer interface systems. Such a non-invasive system could potentially operate a robotic arm or motorized wheelchair ? a huge advance for people with disabilities or paralysis.Until now, to reconstruct hand motions, researchers have used non-portable and invasive methods that place sensors inside the brain. In this study, a team of neuroscientists led by José Contreras-Vidal, PhD, of the University of Maryland, College Park, placed an array of sensors on the scalps of five participants to record their brains' electrical activity, using a process called electroencephalography, or EEG. Volunteers were asked to reach from a center button and touch eight other buttons in random or