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Amputee feels texture with a ‘bionic’ fingertip

Posted in cyborgs, electronics, transhumanism

An amputee feels texture in real time: Signals from sensors in an artificial fingertip are converted to neural-like spikes and delivered to nerves in the upper arm. (credit: Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne)

Amputee Dennis Aabo Sørensen is the first person in the world to recognize texture (smoothness vs. roughness) using an artificial “bionic” fingertip surgically connected to nerves in his upper arm. The experimental system was developed by EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) and SSSA (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna).

“The stimulation felt almost like what I would feel with my hand,” says Sørensen. “I felt the texture sensations at the tip of the index finger of my phantom hand.”

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