Chalmers University of Technology
Advances in neuroscience and engineering have generated great hope for Luke Skywalker-like prosthetics: robotic devices that are almost indistinguishable from a human limb. Key to solving this challenge is designing devices that not only can be operated with a user’s own neural activity, but can also accurately and precisely receive and relay sensory information to the user. A new study by neuroscientists at Chalmers and the University of Chicago, published in the journal Cell Reports, highlights just how difficult this may prove to be. In a cohort of three subjects whose amputated limbs had been replaced with a neuromusculoskeletal prosthetic limb, the investigators found that even after a full year of using the devices, the participant’s subjective sensation never shifted to match the location of the touch sensors on their prosthetic devices.