Bionic Finger Allow Amputee To Feel Texture

Bionic Hands

A group scientists have succeeded in designing a bionic finger (PDF) that can make amputees feel textures and even differentiate between rough and smooth surfaces. The team asked Dennis Aabo Sørensen, who lost his left hand in an accident, to test it out. He said the sensations it gave him were almost like what you did  feel with your own hand.

Sørensen has been helping the EPFL with its prosthetics research for quite some time, so he already has electrodes implanted above the stump on his left forearm. Last year, the team used them to connect a bionic hand that can recognize both shape and softness to his limb. This time, they wired the electrodes to the fingertip, which was rubbed against several pieces of plastic engraved with different patterns. Sørensen reported that he felt the textures "at the tip of the index finger of [his] phantom hand" and was able to correctly differentiate between rough and smooth plastics 96 percent of the time.