Robotic prosthetics with sensations. This could be the next announcement after the presentation of the Lifehand 2 Project of the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland) and the Institute of Biorobotics in Pisa (Italy), on the bionic hand with a sense of touch and whose results have been published in the Science Translational Medicine journal.
The prototype prosthesis was tested for a month with Dennis Sorensen , a Danish man who lost his left hand in an accident a decade ago. Once the device was implanted, making a connection of the nerves of the arm with the bionic hand , it allowed the patient to identify the shape and texture of various objects without actually seeing them.
The robotic limb detects information about touch using electrical signals from artificial tendons that control the movement of the fingers.
The sensory feedback of the patient was very positive, since the fusion of man and machine occurred completely naturally in the trial.
It is the first neuro-prosthesis that regenerates an amputee's sense of touch in real time .
Scientists believe that artificial limbs represent the first step towards a true bionic hand that could both move and feel.
