Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

The world's first prosthetic hand capable of providing a "near-natural" sense of touch to its wearer has been developed by the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The advance, made by the Revolutionising Prosthetics program, could soon find use with people living with paralysed or missing limbs.The robotic prosthetic has already been tested on a 28-year-old volunteer who had been paralysed for more than a decade. By connecting the device directly to his brain's sensory cortex - the region of the brain responsible for identifying tactile sensations - the volunteer was able to identify when individual fingers were being touched.

Darpa's latest research is yet to be peer reviewed but early indications from the volunteer testing the technology give a hint of the technology's future potential. The agency claims that he reported the feeling "was as if his own hand were being touched" and responded to blindfolded touch tests with nearly 100% accuracy.

"At one point, instead of pressing one finger, the team decided to press two of them without telling him," Sanchez said. "He responded in jest asking whether somebody was trying to play a trick on him. That is when we knew that the feelings he was perceiving through the robotic hand were near-natural.

"Darpa's investments in neurotechnologies are helping to open entirely new worlds of function and experience for individuals living with paralysis and have the potential to benefit people with similarly debilitating brain injuries or diseases."

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