First Bionic Fingertip Implant Delivers Sensational Results (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: Dennis Aabo Sorensen may be missing a hand, but he nonetheless recently felt rough and smooth textures using a fingertip on that arm. The fingertip was electronic, and was surgically hard-wired to nerves in his upper arm. He is reportedly the first person in the world to recognize texture using a bionic fingertip connected to electrodes that were surgically implanted above his stump. The device was created by scientists from the Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, and Italy's Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna research institute. While it was wired to Sorensen, a machine moved it across rough and smooth plastic surfaces. Sensors in the fingertip generated electrical signals as they deformed in response to the topography of those surfaces, and transmitted those signals to the nerves in a series of electrical spikes -- this was reportedly an imitation of the "language of the nervous system." He was able to differentiate between the two surfaces with an accuracy of 96 percent.

Comments

This is actually pretty cool

[93 Escort Wagon]

The guy is an amputee. It's not one of those things where he had no experience with a sensation, and needed to be trained to recognize that a particular stimulus represented rough or smooth textures.

From TFA:

"The stimulation felt almost like what I would feel with my hand," he said. "I still feel my missing hand, it is always clenched in a fist. I felt the texture sensations at the tip of the index finger of my phantom hand."

Re:This is actually pretty cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this technology will eventually put an end to phantom limb syndrome. If there are real sensations, then maybe the dorsal horn won't need to make them up.