The USA's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency has designed a prosthetic hand with the help of which a 28-year-old man was able to feel physical sensations. The man has been paralyzed for more than a decade due to a spinal cord injury but when he wore the prosthetic hand he was not only able to ‘feel’ when the hand was being touched but was also able to make out which finger.

The hand works by being wired straight into the brain's motor cortex region, allowing electrical signals from the brain to be translated into movement by the hand. With a motive to develop a sense of touch in the hand, the concept was extrapolated further. Electrode arrays, which are usually used to measure voltage and current, were implanted into the patient's sensory cortex. Sensory cortex is the part of the brain responsible for identifying touch sensations.

In a statement, DARPA program manager Justin Sanchez, who oversees the agency's prosthetics program, said that they have completed the circuit. Sanchez said, “Prosthetic limbs that can be controlled by thoughts are showing great promise, but without feedback from signals travelling back to the brain, it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements”. He added that by wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain, the work has shown the potential for seamless bio-technological restoration of near-natural function.