<p>What major deals in the research of prosthesis and its application to mechanical parts and organs for cyborgs. I assume the closest to the feild I am trying to describe is "Bioengineering and Technology" (major title) but I'm not sure.</p>
<p>Simply put: What major deals with Prosthesis and Cybernetics?</p>
<p>Prosthesis and cybernetics (I think you're talking mostly about robotics-ish stuff here) both encompass a wide variety of fields. Different majors will prepare you for different aspects of working with them.</p>
<p>For example, prostheses involve mechanical engineering, in terms of the actual structural design of the prostheses. You could be a physicist working on the mechanics of human motion, which would be applied in work with prostheses. Biomaterials research would also be pertinent in certain prostheses, which involves BME/bio/chemical engineering, materials science, cemistry, and again physics to understand the properties of the materials.</p>
<p>"cybernetics" (I've only ever heard this used in sci-fi. Is it really the name of a scientific field? Anyway, I may be off base here, but I'll just treat it as if it were robotics) is again very multi/interdisciplinary. Again you have the mechanical design aspect and the physics behind it. You have electrical engineering in the design of the robot's control systems. CS research, especially in AI and control, would be applicable to the field, and if you came with more of a programming/applied CS/computer engineering background you could work on the implementation of these CS concepts.</p>
<p>...So in terms of major, just pick a broader field that interests you at the UG level. Prostheses & cybernetics/robotics would be more of a grad-level/industry specialization. Pick the aspect of the process tha seems most interesting to you, and that would probably be a decent way to get into prostheses or cybernetics. Who knows, maybe you'll end up being interested by something completely different within whatever broad field you choose. Pretty much any physical science or engineering major will prepare you to work with prostheses & robotics in some way.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I'm just a HS student. My only possible qualification for giving this info is that I'm on the robotics team, and I'm interested in similar fields and have mentors on the team who are involved in them. So take everything I say here with a mound of salt. But the general idea is most scientific & engineering research is very interdisciplinary these days, and your best bet is to pick the field you're most interested in and worry about specific research later, or pick the field that seems the most applicable to the widest variety of reserach topics that interest you.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great reply krbanks :).</p>
<p>BTW, will biophysics prepare for prosthesis and cybernetics? Also, could I go into this feild from being a doctor? For example if I finish medical school as a surgeon, will I still be able to work in some research feild in the cybernetics prosthesis feild?</p>
<p>Yes, I think biophysics would be good for a prosthesis and cybernetics person. (I'm just a senior in HS though, btw). My only qualification to give advice is my buring interest in cognitive neuroscience, and all I've read about it and my own personal college search. I think Biomedical engineering would also be a place to go. </p>
<p>Also, look at Brown University. There's a professor their who helped design BrainGate, a computer chip that interfaces with a paralyzed patient's brain to possibly enable movement. There are a lot of professors there doing "neurotechnology" research.</p>
<p>Although a lot of the biophysics stuff these days is more geared towards studying protein folding. Beyond a basic understanding of human anatomy and circulation and such, I think you probably don't need that much actual bio training to work with prostheses (I don't know though).</p>
<p>Biomedical engineering would definitely be applicable for this stuff, and combines a lot of the different aspects I was going on about.</p>
<p>Brown is awesome for neuroscience, at least for grad research (neurosci is an interest of mine too. They do such cool stuff). I'm sure their bio and engineering departments are great too, but at the UGrad level it probably wouldn't make a significant impact. You can learn what you ned to for prostheses work pretty much anywhere, probably.</p>
<p>And yes, there are doctors who work on prostheses and such. They don't usually practice much medicine though, they're more of the "physician scientist" model. I have no basis for this, but I'm thinking most of the prostheses research is probably done by outside contractors or universities mainly in engineering departments. Or at least the discoveries are made in engineering, and later applied to prostheses by doctors or academic medicine people.</p>