Stanford University's Bao Research Group has developed a soft, flexible electronic skin that can mimic the process that causes a finger or a toe to react and move away when poked, or when they touch a hot surface.
The human skin contains mechanoreceptors that
can sense something as delicate as the weight of a butterfly, or heat or cold
from a nearby object. It can also detect the delicate rhythm of a loved one's
heartbeat and whether the hand raised at us is raised in a fist of aggression
or a peace sign. But for people with prosthetic limbs these sensations, good or
bad, are something they miss. Now, researchers have found a way that can help
restore these sensations for amputees through electronic skin.
his technology, as per Nature, could lead to
the development of a covering for prosthetic limbs. The best part about this
breakthrough soft "e-skin" is that it can directly transmit
electrical signals to the wearer's brain to allow them to ‘feel’ pressure,
strain or changes in temperature.
"This current e-skin really has all the
attributes that we have been dreaming about," says chemical engineer
Zhenan Bao of Stanford University.
"We have been talking about it for a
long time."
Unlike previous attempts, this new e-skin
uses soft integrated circuits to convert sensory information, such as pressure
and temperature, into electrical signals similar to nerve impulses.
The goal is to use this technology in
prosthetic limbs to provide sensory feedback and improve control for amputees.
In an experiment, the newly developed
electronic skin was tested on a rat. The e-skin was connected to the rat's
somatosensory cortex, which is the region of the brain involved in processing physical
sensations.
When the electronic skin was stimulated by touch, it generated an electrical signal that was transmitted to the brain. From there, the signal passed through an artificial synapse to the rat's sciatic nerve located in its leg, resulting in a twitching motion of the limb.
Bao says that in the future, they hope to develop a less invasive system that won't have to be implanted into the brain.
"We envision that for people who lost
their limbs, we don’t have to implant into the brain," she said as per
Nature.
"We could have an implant in the
peripheral nervous system."
The current version of the e-skin has to be
wired to an external power source, but the researchers hope to ultimately
develop a wireless device. "This new e-skin runs on just 5 volts and can
detect stimuli similar to real skin," described Weichen Wang, a doctoral
candidate in Bao's lab, the first author of the paper.
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