A man has been able to feel through the use of his bionic hand for the first time.
Dennis Sorensen of Denmark is the first person in the world to test the breakthrough technology, dubbed Lifehand 2, that gave him the ability to feel the shape and texture of objects for the first time since he lost his left hand in a fireworks accident nine years ago.
On 26th January 2013, Paolo Maria Rossini led a team of Swiss and Italian scientists in Gemelli Hospital, Rome, to attach the sensory ulnar and median nerves in his upper-arm to the bionic hand through ultra-fine electrodes, which can pass electronic signals back and forth.
Quoted in Science 2.0, Sorensen said:
“The sensory feedback was incredible…I could feel things that I hadn’t been able to feel in over nine years.”
The electrodes and prosthetic hand had to be removed after a one month trial due to clinical trial safety rules, but the scientists believe that they would have continued to work for many years without damaging the nervous system.
The experiment shows the first step in a path towards prosthetic limbs that can be controlled by the brain and offer sensory feedback, with the results of the study published in Science Translational Medicine.