Medicine New method to bring feeling back to artificial limbs

Wearers of bionic prostheses cannot feel them naturally. However, researchers in Vienna are now reporting significant progress: Thanks to a new type of interface, the feeling of the lost limb can be restored.

The study results, recently published in the journal "Nature Communications", could make it possible to perceive the prosthesis as one's own body part, as it were.

We are talking about a new human-machine interface that works via a connection between transplanted skin, nerves and muscles. The interface can also improve the control of the prosthesis, as the MedUni Vienna research team led by Oskar Aszmann discovered. Patients could feel and move their artificial limb as if it belonged to their own body.

The next step will be to confirm the findings in studies on patients with bionic prostheses.

SDA