In addition to these functional improvements, the AMI patient also moves and behaves as though the bionic limb is part of him. After a few minutes of wearing it for the first time, we asked the patient to describe his relationship with the device, and he said, “The robot became part of me.” Because the patient’s nervous system was connected to the prosthesis in a bi-directional manner, neurological embodiment was achieved.  This is an example of a design paradigm that we call NeuroEmbodied Design. In this design process, the designer designs human flesh and bone–the biological body itself–along with synthetics, to enhance bi-directional communication between a human’s nervous system and the built world. “Previously humans have used technology in a tool-like fashion,” senior author and project director Professor Hugh Herr says. “We are now starting to see a new era of human-device interaction, of full neurological embodiment, in which what we design becomes truly part of us, part of our identity.”  We see a future in which our designed world will be carefully integrated within our nature: a world in which what is biological and what is not, what is human and what is not, what is nature and what is not, will be forever blurred.