14 DAY TRIAL // 36-year-old Dennis Aabo Sørensen from Denmark has officially become the first person in the world to experience sensory-rich information in real time with the help of a bionic hand.
In a paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine this past February 5, a team of scientists and surgeons who worked on developing the prosthetic limb and connecting it with the man's body detail that the bionic hand was linked to nerves in his upper hand.
The surgery during which Dennis Aabo Sørensen was fitted with the artificial limb took place on January 26, 2013, in Rome.
During this procedure, doctors inserted a special type of electrodes known as transneural into the man's ulnar and median nerves.
About three weeks later, the bionic hand was connected to the electrodes, and began doing its job of transmitting signals into Dennis Aabo Sørensen's nervous system.
This was why, during a series of experiments carried out in last year's February, Dennis Aabo Sørensen managed to grab hold of certain objects while blindfolded.
What's more, with the help of sensors meant to pin down information concerning touch, he was able to comment on the properties of the items that his bionic hand was touching and holding.
“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,” researcher Silvestro Micera commented on this achievement.
According to EurekAlert, Dennis Aabo Sørensen lost his left hand nine years before agreeing to take part in this experiment and being fitted with the bionic limb.
In an interview, the man said that he himself was fairly surprised by how natural touching things with the prosthetic hand felt.
“The sensory feedback was incredible. I could feel things that I hadn’t been able to feel in over nine years,” the 36-year-old man said. “When I held an object, I could feel if it was soft or hard, round or square,” he added.
The bionic hand that Dennis Aabo Sørensen was fitted with was just a prototype. Thus, scientists say that it will be some years before such sensory-enhanced prosthetic limbs become commercially available.
Check out the video below to see what the prosthetic limb that the 36-year-old man was fitted with looks like, and learn more about how it works.
