First prosthetic hand with tactile sensations successfully implanted

In a pioneering surgical procedure carried out Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, titanium implants were placed in the patients two forearm bones, from which electrodes to nerves and muscle were extended to extract signals to control a robotic hand and to provide tactile sensations. The team claims that this makes it the first clinically viable, dexterous and sentient prosthetic hand usable in real life.

The new implant technology was developed in Sweden by a team led by Dr Max Ortiz Catalan at bone-anchored prosthetics specialist Integrum AB and Chalmers University of Technology.  This surgery took place as part of a larger EU funded project called DeTOP, which is led by  Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, and also includes Essex University, Prensilia, the University of Gothenburg, Lund University, the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology, INAIL Prosthetic Center, Universitá Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, and the Instituto Ortopedico Rizzoli.

Explaining Essex University’s role in the project, Dr Luca Citi, from the university's Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering Laboratory said: “The Essex team contributed to the development of algorithms which could decode and understand the neuro-muscular signals from the user’s brain about what they intended to do and then send those commands to the robotic control of the prosthetic hand."