A new type of prosthetics can give you nerve-mimicking experience. What is it?

Losing a body part is a different form of a traumatic experience. It is a life-changing experience, and a normally abled person may never understand what all losses a person faces after losing a body part. Not just does one lose the ability to grab objects or other motor skills or functions the body part used to perform, but the person also loses the ability to sense and touch the environment through that body organ. Thankfully, we have prosthetics that can restore the lack of motor abilities. However, prosthetics aren't always enough to fill the void. For instance, a person who has lost one leg may use prosthetics to walk, but the void of one's own leg may still be missing.

Prosthetics had never felt natural, until the advent of a new study which showed that a device implanted in the rest of the part of the leg can aid a person get the feeling as if they were walking. Such a prosthetic is helpful in giving the amputee the feeling of moving faster and with better confidence.

Jacob George, a neuro-engineer at the University of Utah stated was a part of the research. “It's a really elegant study,” he expressed. Such experiments are not directly performed on humans. Instead, experiments like these are first verified through computational methods. Next, they are tested through animal models. Finally, such experiments are tested are tried on humans. “This work is really impactful because it's one of the first studies that's done in a holistic way,” expresses the neuro-engineer.

It is not easy for patients who depend on prosthetics to adapt. One of the issues that they face is that they can't correctly hold control of the device as they are unable to feel the pressure that may be exerted upon the object. For instance, amputees who lose their arms or hands are more inclined to break or drop things during the days when they are simply learning to adapt to prosthetics. The fear of getting prone to such situations is so much that many amputees refuse to incorporate prosthetics into their lives. However, this may not be the situation now, thanks to the new nerve-mimicking prosthetics.