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Smithsonian Magazine

In a First, a Prosthetic Limb Can Sense Temperature Like a Living Hand

The advance may help users feel a greater sense of human connection through touch

Amputees’ hopes to experience the feeling of human touch using their prosthetics are becoming closer to reality. Now, new technology is allowing them to feel temperature—even in limbs that are no longer part of their bodies. For the first time, a functional artificial limb has been fitted with fingertip sensors that allow an ordinary prosthetic hand to sense and respond to temperature just as a living hand does. The device provides a realistic sense of hot and cold in the missing “phantom” hand by delivering thermal information to nerve areas on the amputee’s residual limb that the brain believes are still connected to the missing hand. The MiniTouch, described in a study published Friday in Med, was created with affordable off-the-shelf electronics, requires no surgery and can be fitted to existing commercial prosthetic hands in a matter of hours.

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