Amputee (57) feels the warmth: New prosthesis provides the feeling of warmth

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It has been possible for the first time to integrate natural temperature sensitivity into a functional prosthesis, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne and the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (I) in Pisa announced on Friday. . The results were presented in Cell Press’s specialist journal “Med”.

“For the first time, we are really close to restoring amputees’ full senses,” Silvestro Micera, one of the lead authors of the study, said in a statement. The statement was included.

Not only the researchers, but also study participant Fabrizio was excited about the device called “Mini Touch”: “When one of the researchers placed the sensor on his own body, I could feel the warmth of another person with his phantom hand. “This was a very strong feeling for me, it reactivated my connection with someone,” he said in the statement. “It was like going through it,” he was quoted as saying.

The basis for this was a surprising discovery that the same research team reported in a study in the journal “Science” in May 2023. Researchers placed thermoelectrodes in the stumps of people whose hands had been amputated. This was an expectation to receive information about where they felt the electrodes on the stump.

However, the subjects felt the warmth in their missing hand, not in the stump of their arm. Researchers called this concept thermal ghost sensation. A specific spot on the stump reflected the temperature to a specific part of the phantom hand.

Researchers have now integrated this concept into the prosthesis. In the next step, they want to make “Mini Touch”, which has only been tested in the laboratory so far, available for wider use. But the new device probably won’t help all people with amputated hands. Only 17 of 27 subjects in the May study experienced a thermal phantom sensation. (SDA)

Source : Blick