Touch for a prosthetic hand

Prosthetics will help the armless to feel reality again

<url>The new type of prostheses allowed disabled people not only to regain their hands, but also to regain tactile sensations, according to the journal Science Translational Medicine (Tan et al., A neural interface provides long-term stable natural touch perception – VM).

It's all about electrical stimulation provided by electrodes implanted in living tissue.

The nerves that transmit the necessary signals to the brain are stimulated by contact points on electrodes implanted in the "living" part of the arm (in the forearm area). Special algorithms convert signals from sensors on prosthetics into electrical impulses of varying intensity, which the brain "reads" as stimuli (according to a press release from Case Western Reserve University "Amputees discern familiar sensations across prosthetic hand" – VM).

After two and a half years of using the prosthesis, Igor Spetic was able to distinguish cotton wool, sandpaper and a sheet of paper by touch blindfolded. Although initially the signals from the prosthesis are rather inaccurate, the experience of using the device allows us to correlate them with points on the "map of sensations" that a person develops throughout his life – the inventors of the prosthesis came to this conclusion.

So far, the system works only in laboratory conditions, but in five years scientists plan to present a portable version.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru10.10.2014