Imagine being able to feel the texture of a cat’s fur or the smoothness of a key, even if you can’t physically touch them. This could be a reality for some patients with prosthetic limbs, thanks to the innovative work of Robert Gaunt and Jennifer Collinger associate professor and professor, respectively, in the School of Medicine. Together they are designing, building, implementing and refining brain-computer interface devices and robotic prosthetic arms that could restore both movement control and a sense of touch in people who have lost significant limb function.
Gaunt and Collinger, faculty in the Rehab Neural Engineering Labs, along with their colleagues, have demonstrated that they can recreate realistic tactile feedback for prosthetic limbs. Their studies document how tiny electrode arrays placed in the brain enable participants to move robotic arms and experience specific touch sensations when viewing photos of different objects on a tablet—an apple, a piece of toast, a towel, a cat or a key. The images evoked touch sensations that were stable, in the correct location and strong enough to be useful for everyday tasks. In addition, they showed that if they activate the electrodes in certain orchestrated patterns, the participants could “feel” the boundaries of an object or the motion of something sliding against their skin.
These breakthroughs, recently published in the high-profile journals Science and Nature Communications, are paving the way for a new era in neuroprosthetics. But the researchers say that these studies are not just about advancing technology, they’re about improving lives. For individuals with prosthetic limbs, Collinger and Gaunt’s research offers hope and a glimpse into regaining independence and confidence.