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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 the University of Chicago and Chalmers University of Technology, published on December 22 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 neuromusculoskeletal prosthetic limbs, 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.