‘Artificial Skin’ Can Sense Pressure and Talk to Your Brain

A team of Engineers from Stanford University have successfully developed a “digital skin”, which is equipped with a sensor that sends electrical signals to the brain once it comes into contact with an object.

Reporting in the October. 16 issue of Science, researchers say the plastic skin mimics the ability of human skin to tell the difference between a firm handshake and the dead-fish variety. DiTact is still in an early phase of development, so the researchers transmitted the signals to cultured cells in vitro, rather into the brains of live mice. “In order to get truly natural touch sensing, we may need to modify and tweak our design”. Remove all pressure and the pulses cease entirely. “Accessibility of this type of technology in humans will grow as both our understanding of neuroscience grows and prosthetic technology advances to provide nuanced sensory perceptions”.

That’s partly because the interaction between human skin and the brain is so complex.

Chortos said that one of the main challenges was getting the circuit and sensor layer to work together effectively. Among the most recent advancements, DARPA recently gave a prosthetic hand a sense of touch, while a German company has created limbs that are so lifelike, it’s hard to tell real from fake. This material only feels pressure – it does not have the capacity to sense pain, temperature, or texture. Now, they have exploited this by scattering billions of one-atom thick grapheme tubes through the plastic. A sensing mechanism is created by the top layer while the bottom layer functions as the circuit for transporting electrical signals and translates those signals into biochemical stimuli that are compatible with the nerve cells.

In this study, the researchers proved that the sensory signals could be transferred to brain cells from mice.

Stretchable skin with flexible artificial mechanoreceptors. Chortos said the goal is to essentially allow the prosthetic to “plug in” to the nervous system. “As our sensor would be mounted alongside artificial limb systems, the primary safety concerns are centered around nerve stimulation patterns and interface”. That electrical signal then had to be calibrated and converted before it could directly activate neurons-an energy intensive method that could easily drift out of calibration.

But it’s just part of the “puzzle”, she added.

Those pressure-specific, pulsed signals can then directly activate neurons. Although many prosthetics can be controlled via muscles, nerves or even brain, patients still doesn’t have the possibility of feeling all sorts of sensations.

Ultimately, Anikeeva said, any widespread use of such prosthetics would depend on people’s comfort with them. “This circuit is relatively simple to build”, Bao says.

These robot fingertips can feel, thanks to artificial skin. 2 years ago, for example, a group at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, reported giving people with prosthetic hands a sense of touch by wiring pressure sensors on the hands to peripheral nerves in their arms.

The science of creating artificial limbs no longer poses problems to researchers as technology has registered a great progress in the past years.