Neuropsychological Trick Makes Robotic Hands Feel Real to Amputees

It might sound like cruel or unusual punishment to fool an amputee into thinking their robotic hand has feeling, but the prospect is a promising shortcut to mapping artificial limbs to a patient’s nerves.

This video explains the phenomenon better than I can, but essentially when a person sees a fake limb touched while they are touched, they begin to feel the fake hand being touched even when they are not. Incorporating this natural phenomenon into bionic limbs isn’t necessarily the ideal long run solution for amputees, but as a short term workaround to painful, ineffective surgeries, it’s sure worth some level of consideration. [NewScientist]