Scientists have for the first time enabled an amputee to feel the texture through artificial fingertips of his phantom hand. This was made possible by connecting the fingertip surgically to nerves of the upper arm of the amputee.

The amputee was able to make distinction between rough and smooth surfaces 96% of the time. The discovery will help in developing bionic prostheses, enhanced with sensory feedback.

"The stimulation felt almost like what I would feel with my hand. I still feel my missing hand; it is always clenched in a fist. I felt the texture sensations at the tip of the index finger of my phantom hand," said Dennis Aabo Sorensen who received the experimental fingertips.

Sorensen participated in discovery led by Silvestro Micera and his team at EPFL and Calogero Oddo and his team at SSSA (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna). The bionic fingertip was connected to electrodes that were surgically implanted above his stump.

According to the team from the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (EPFL), similar stimulations were aroused in nerves of non-amputees to feel roughness, but without any need of surgery. This indicates that prosthetic touch for amputees can now be developed and safely tested on non-amputees.

This new research on texture has been published in the journal eLife. It stated that the machine controlled movement of the fingertip over different pieces of plastic engraved with different patterns, smooth or rough. The machine generated signals through sensors. The signals were translated into a series of electrical spikes for delivering them to the nerves. In another study, Sorensen's implants were connected to a sensory-enhanced prosthetic hand that helped him recognize shape and softness.