A Washington University team developed a novel device that may allow individuals to feel hot and cold temperatures through a prosthetic technology. If the invention works as planned, upper-limb amputees who use motorized devices would be able to feel various sensations through the prosthetic, which would send sensory signals to the brain.

A macro-sieve peripheral nerve interface stimulates regeneration of the ulnar and median nerves to transmit information back into the central nervous system. By enabling the ability to feel, users will have more control over the prosthesis.

The device is about one-eighth the size of a dime and made of an ultrathin, flexible material similar to a soft contact lens. The researchers will implant the device into the forearms of anesthetized nonhuman primates, determining the amount of sensory information that is encoded by providing low levels of stimulation to small groups of ​nerves.

Once implanted, the team will train the nonhuman primates to play a joystick-controlled videogame, in which the team will give them cues as to where to move the joystick by stimulating specific sectors in the ulnar and median nerves.

To determine how many sensors will work on the prosthetic hand, Daniel Moran, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering, and his researchers will also analyze the number of different independent channels that they can stimulate on the nerve.

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