Amputees were able to regain the sensation of hot and cold in their phantom limb

2023-05-23 16:14:32

Many hand or leg amputees say they still feel the sometimes painful presence of their missing limb. EPFL scientists have designed a sensory sensor that transmits hot and cold sensations in their phantom limb, as if it were always present!

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Scientists from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), with their colleague from the University of Pisa, have achieved a feat : making the phantom limb of amputated patients feel cold and hot. ” Feeling the temperature is a pleasant sensation because you feel your limb, the phantom limb, fully. The member is no longer a ghost, it’s like it’s there once more says Florence Rossi, an Italian hand amputee who participated in this study with 17 other amputees. A feat made possible by the design of a sensory device that transmits the sensations of cold and heat to the skin. Integrated into prosthetics, it might allow amputees to feel the temperature of anything they touch.

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Transmit heat in a missing limb

The device, called MiniTouch, consists of a sensory sensor, placed on the surface whose temperature you want to know, connected to a thermal electrode affixed to the skin. The sensory sensor transmits information on the temperature of the object to the electrode which reproduces it in the form of heat. Thus, if the sensor is placed on a hot cup of tea, the skin will feel the heat of the cup.

The MiniTouch was first tested on able-bodied limbs before being placed on the stumps of amputees. They then described feelings of heat radiating throughout their phantom limb. ” It is particularly important that the phantom thermal sensations are perceived by the patient as similar to those felt by their intact hand. », explain Soleiman Shokur, senior scientific neuroengineer at EPFL who co-led the study.

Hope for a better quality of life

The scientists also designed a bionic hand prototype with the MiniTouch integrated into one of the fingers. Thus the patients were able to experience sensations of cold or heat by touching several materials such as glass, plastic or metal. EPFL scientists thus hope to improve the quality of life of amputees, more than half of whom report the presence of sensations, often painful, in their phantom limb.

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