I'm late to the party. I found this video today about the Duke research:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b6OElzJlMg

He mentions somatosensory pathways. This is so fascinating to me. I think it's why Banding works, Rick. It stimulates the sensory pathway, and gives needed tactile feedback.

I've been dropping things a lot lately, usually with my left 'good side' hand, sometimes the right 'bad side'. I realized that I drop things that are light, not heavy. And when I'm on auto pilot, not focusing on the action of holding something in that hand, I'll drop it. If I concentrate and squeeze what I am holding, I'm okay.

When I hold something heavy in my left hand, I don't drop it. I hold many bottles at my work, and never dropped a full bottle, only empty ones. I think it's because the weight gives sensory feedback which I need. I have trouble doing that same action without the sensory feedback of the weight.

I drop my pill bottles often, pills often spilling all over, even when I'm careful and try to concentrate on my actions. Probably because they weigh so little. if I don't squeeze the bottles and caps hard, I drop them.

Reading about this new spinal stimulation that stimulates the tactile neurons, if I'm stating that correctly, it makes perfect sense. I had no clue they could target such neurons in the spinal cord with a simple device. It's very exciting work!

Rick, how is your experiment going? Sorry, I've been out of the loop.

~Zucchini