A World First: Technology That Restores Sense of Touch

Tel Aviv University has announced a groundbreaking technology that could restore the sense of touch in the nerves of a limb following amputation or injury.

The technology involves a tiny sensor that is implanted in the nerve of the injured limb, for example in the finger, and is connected directly to a healthy nerve. Each time the limb touches an object, the sensor is activated and conducts an electric current to the functioning nerve, which recreates the feeling of touch.

The researchers emphasize that this is a tested and safe technology and could be implanted anywhere inside of the human body once clinical trials are completed.

The technology was developed under the leadership of a team of experts from Tel Aviv University: Dr. Ben M. Maoz, Iftach Shlomy, Shay Divald, and Dr. Yael Leichtmann-Bardoogo from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, in collaboration with Keshet Tadmor from the Sagol School of Neuroscience and Dr. Amir Arami from the Sackler School of Medicine and the Microsurgery Unit in the Department of Hand Surgery at Sheba Medical Center. The study was published in the prestigious journal ACS Nano.

In recent years, the field of neural prostheses has made promising developments to improve the lives of those who have lost sensation in their limbs by implanting sensors in place of the damaged nerves. But the existing technology has a number of drawbacks, such as complex manufacturing and use, as well as the need for an external power source, such as a battery.

Now, the researchers at TAU have used state-of-the-art technology called a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) to engineer and test on animal models a tiny sensor that restores tactile sensation via an electric current that comes directly from a healthy nerve and doesn’t require a complex implantation process or charging. It needs no external power source such as electricity or batteries. The researchers explain that the sensor actually works on frictional force: whenever the device senses friction, it charges itself.

The device consists of two tiny plates less than half a centimeter by half a centimeter in size. When these plates come into contact with each other, they release an electric charge that is transmitted to the undamaged nerve. When the injured finger touches something, the touch releases tension corresponding to the pressure applied to the device – weak tension for a weak touch and strong tension for a strong touch – just like in a normal sense of touch.

According to Dr. Maoz, after testing the new sensor in the lab (with more than half a million finger taps using the device), the researchers implanted it in the feet of the animal models. The animals walked normally, without having experienced any damage to their motor nerves, and the tests showed that the sensor allowed them to respond to sensory stimuli.