Scientists have successfully created an artificial hand that can feel and touch, it was announced last night.
The hand has been successfully tested by an amputee – but needs further development before it can be used in day to day life, developers say.
The first person to test the hand was Dennis Aabo Sørensen, from Denmark, who tested it for a month.
Details of the research were reported in Science Translational Medicine.
Mr Sørensen, aged 36, who lost his hand in a firework accident, said: "The sensory feedback was incredible. I could feel things that I hadn’t been able to feel in over nine years.
“When I held an object, I could feel if it was soft or hard, round or square.”
The hand was developed at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and at the Scuola Superiore Sant-Anna in Pisa, Italy.
The researchers say it is the first step towards a "bionic hand" but warn that a commercial version is years away. To make it portable, arrays of sensory feedback electronics need miniaturisation.
Researcher Silvestro Micera, from Lausanne, said: “This is the first time in neuroprosthetics that sensory feedback has been restored and used by an amputee in real-time to control an artificial limb."
Science Translational Medicine 5 February 2014 [abstract]
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