126. Amputees Feel Warmth In Their Missing Hand

The Next Byte Podcast · 13 Jun 2023 · 19m

What this episode covers

Hosts Daniel and Forbode discuss research from EPFL that allows amputees to feel temperature in their phantom limbs using a non-invasive prosthetic system. The team discovered that stimulating specific spots on the residual limb triggers phantom sensations, which they leveraged by connecting heat sensors on the prosthetic hand to thermodes on the arm. This approach bypasses invasive surgery by letting the brain interpret the signals as temperature in the missing hand, a breakthrough validated by 27 patients.

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