A new invention will change the way you view prosthetics. The new artificial material would apparently give a "sense of touch" to prosthetics that would enable the wearer to feel different textures and surfaces and even temperature. This radical invention came from a group of engineers from Stanford University in a step to developing "limbs" that would soon be able to feel and function like a real one.
The plastic material that would be used as a "skin," which would cover the whole prosthetic, would have a stretchable material and would be biocompatible with the body. "This is the first time a flexible, skin-like material has been able to detect pressure and also transmit a signal to a component of the nervous system," Professor Zhenan Bao, from Stanford University and one of the developers, said. "We have a lot of work to take this from experimental to practical applications. But, I now see a clear path where we can take our artificial skin."
The skin is made of two layers of sensors, the first one serves as the detector of pressure and the second one would be the nerve that would transfer signals like Morse code to the main limb that would be sent to the brain to define the feeling.
This was made possible by the billions of nanotubes attached to the skin that conduct electricity same as the synapses made by the nerves, which give a more accurate sense of touch. These processes were bioengineered by Karl Deisseroth, a Bioengineering professor from Stanford, by bringing the genetics and optics together, calling it optogenetics.
However, the device is still yet to be released as it is still on its developing stage, but this would surely be a radical change that would be a good help to the people that use and are in need of prosthetics.