Dennis Aabo Sorenson, an amputee who lost his left hand, was able to regain a sense of touch with the help of a bionic finger. The silicon bionic finger made by a team from Switzerland's école Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna also allowed Sorenso to be able to feel different textures.

He is the first amputee to try the bionic fingertip. This suggests that the prospect of amputees having a sense of touch again by using bionic prosthesis is both high and safe as it doesn't need surgery.

The Bionic Fingertip is the First in the World that Doesn't Involve Surgery

Sorenson was able to feel again with his left hand through the use of the bionic fingertip, which was amputated after a fireworks accident. The Swiss and Italian researchers, led by Silvestro Micera, used electronic signals to simulate nerve signals similar to when the finger touches textured surfaces.

"The stimulation felt almost like what I would feel with my hand," said Sorenson, notes Medical Daily. "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."

For the demo, Sorenson's arm was connected to the bionic fingertip with sensors. He was able to determine the textures of surfaces when the bionic finger touched them. It was reportedly more sensitive than a real arm as he was able to sense the textured surfaces better than non-amputees. Sorenson felt the roughness and smoothness of the textures 96 percent of the time, while others only felt 77 percent of the textures with their real hands.

The findings of the experiment were detailed in the journal eLife.

Bionic Devices May Come in Five to Ten Years

The researchers hope to have patients use the device in experiments in order to stage a clinical practice in five to ten years. Live Science notes that the bionic fingertip can only determine different textures "on a millimite scale." They plan to increase its sensitiveness so that it can discern wood, cotton, silk, wood and many other different materials.

"This study merges fundamental sciences and applied engineering: it provides additional evidence that research in neuroprosthetics can contribute to the neuroscience debate, specifically about the neuronal mechanisms of the human sense of touch," one of the researchers explained in a press release, per Eurek Alert.

The bionic device may also be used in other fields that require artificial touch such as in surgery, manufacturing and even rescue.

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