Robotic touch shifts perception of embodiment to a prosthesis in targeted reinnervation amputees

Existing prosthetic limbs do not provide amputees with cutaneous feedback. Tactile feedback is essential to intuitive control of a prosthetic limb and it is now clear that the sense of body self-identification is also linked to cutaneous touch. Here we have created an artificial sense of touch for a prosthetic limb by coupling a pressure sensor on the hand through a robotic stimulator to surgically redirected cutaneous sensory nerves (targeted...