Scientists Restore Nerve Sensation in Amputees

Digital Journal — Amputees may soon be able to regain the sense of touch and temperature in their “phantom” limbs, a new innovative surgery promises. In the future, artificial limbs may not be so different from regular limbs in terms of sensation. A new type of surgery rerouted major nerves to give amputees better control over their prosthetic arms. This connection sparks nerve growth into the skin of the chest, allowing the amputee to feel the sense of touch and temperature. When certain areas of the chest are touched, the amputee feels something in the missing hand. Paul Marasco, a sensory neurophysiologist and post-doctoral fellow at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, told CBC News: "It appears that the body has a really surprising ability to heal itself, and the idea that these nerves were able to regenerate through the skin over such large distances did come as quite a surprise to us." Marasco added that his innovative surgery isn’t invasive or complex. Surgeons take the ends of several large nerves that remain after amputating the arm (nerves which previously controlled limb movement) and hook them up to the nerve under the pectoral muscle in the chest. Marasco said: "We take each of those individual big nerves and then we plug right onto the little nerve that we cut on the underside of the muscle. And once that's done, then the motor parts, or the motor nerves, grow into muscle and re-establish connections with the muscle in the chest instead of the muscles they once served in the arm." After several months, when the nerves reestablished themselves, researchers applied to the nerves physical pressure, warm and cold temperatures, and electrical stimulus. The patients say they could feel the sensation in their missing arms and hands. The participating scientists said in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, according to France24: "This work offers the possibility that an amputee may one day be able to feel with an artificial limb as though it was his own."