Man's Robotic Hand Allows Him to 'Feel'

Researchers at Johns Hopkins university have successfully wired a 28-year-old paralyzed man's robotic hand directly into his brain to allow him to "feel." The hand is part of an advanced prosthetics project funded by the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The man, who has been paralyzed for more than a decade due to a spinal-cord injury, was able to both control the hand with thought and sense when the fingers of the hand were touched individually. Researchers inserted electrodes from the robotic limb into his sensory and motor cortices. Sensors in the hand were able to detect pressure against any of the fingers and generate electrical signals to imitate touch sensations. The man was able to detect which finger on the hand was touched with almost 100 percent accuracy.