A new surgical technique could allow prosthetic limbs to feel much more like natural limbs. Through coordination of the patient's prosthetic limb, existing nerves, and muscle grafts, amputees would be able to sense where their limbs are in space and to feel how much force is being applied to them.

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A new surgical technique devised by MIT researchers could allow prosthetic limbs to feel much more like natural limbs.

Through coordination of the patient's prosthetic limb, existing nerves, and muscle grafts, amputees would be able to sense where their limbs are in space and to feel how much force is being applied to them.

During a conventional limb amputation, muscles are severed in a way that cuts off a key relationship that normally helps people control their limbs and sense where they are in space.

Without these intact muscle pairs, persons with limb amputation have no way of sensing where their artificial limbs are, nor can they sense the forces applied to those limbs.

"They have to visually follow their hands or their limbs, because there isn't any feedback from the device or residual limb that tells their brain where their prosthetic limbs are in space," Srinivasan says.

"It's solving one of the major challenges when it comes to control of artificial limbs, which is sensing where the limb is in space," says Branemark, who was not involved in the study.

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