Bionic hand feels?

Dennis Aabo Sorensen lost his hand 10 years ago when a firework rocket exploded in his hand during New Year's Eve celebrations, Fox News reports.

But for a while last year he regained his sense of touch after being attached to a "feeling" bionic hand that allowed him to grasp and identify objects even when blindfolded.

The prototype device, which was wired to nerves in the 36-year-old Dane's left arm, blurs the boundary between body and machine and scientists hope it could one day revolutionize the lives of many amputees.

There is still work to be done in miniaturizing components and tidying away trailing cables that mean the robotic hand has so far only been used in the lab.

"It's amazing to feel something you haven't been able to feel for so many years," Sorensen told Reuters in a telephone interview. 

In his everyday life Sorensen uses a commercial prosthetic hand that can detect muscle movement in his stump to open and close his hand, but provides no sense of touch and requires him to watch constantly to prevent objects being crushed.

The new so-called LifeHand 2 prosthesis is far more sophisticated in combining intra-nerve wiring, robotics and computer science to create life-like feeling.

Ultra-thin electrodes the width of a human hair were surgically implanted into the ulnar and median nerves of Sorensen's arm before he was attached to the robotic hand, which is equipped with various artificial sensors.

These sensors measure the tension in man-made tendons on each finger to assess the force used to grasp different objects, while computer algorithms transform this information into an electrical signal that the nerves can interpret.

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