VR, Artificial Tactile Signals Allow Amputees to Feel Prosthetics As Real Body Part

In a breakthrough approach that combined virtual reality and bogus tactile sensations, amputees felt as though their prosthetic hand was part of their own torso as part of a new report. In the study, scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, used an astute combination of two senses — sight and touch, to convince amputees that the prosthetic mitt belonged to their own body.

The results, published in the Periodical of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, also showed that the phantom limb grows into the prosthetic hand. Many amputees often opt out of prolonged use of their prosthetic limb considering their own perception of the missing limb does non friction match up with what they see of the prosthesis.

VR, Artificial Tactile Signals Allow Amputees to Feel Prosthetics As Real Body Parts "The brain regularly uses its senses to evaluate what belongs to the torso and what is external to the body. Nosotros showed exactly how vision and bear on tin be combined to trick the amputee's brain into feeling what it sees, inducing embodiment of the prosthetic hand with an additional effect that the phantom limb grows into the prosthetic one," said Giulio Rognini from the EPFL.

"The setup is portable and could ane twenty-four hour period be turned into a therapy to assistance patients embody their prosthetic limb permanently," Rognini added. For the written report, the team provided bogus tactile sensations at the tip of the index finger — of the phantom limb — by stimulating the patient's nerve in the stump, in 2 mitt amputees.

At the aforementioned fourth dimension, the patient wore virtual reality goggles which showed the alphabetize finger of the prosthetic limb glowing in synchrony with the administered touch sensations. This combination of virtual reality with artificial tactile sensations took the safety-hand illusion to another level. Both patients reported feeling every bit though the prosthetic hand belonged to their ain body.