Scientists have worked to make a prosthesis ideal, and Dennis Aabo Sørensen's new hand is almost there - it let him feel again.

Published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the hand has only been tested on Sørensen. It works by tapping into Sørensen's nerves via electrodes in his arm that are stimulated by sensitive pressor sensors on the hand's fingertips. The result is touch, something that feels a lot like what Sørensen can get out of his good hand.

Silvestro Micera, a neural engineer at the Scoula Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in Switzerland, lead the team of researchers who built the prosthetic limb, and considers it "certainly a major step in the right direction."

The catch, however, is since the study focused on a single person, it's difficult to draw any conclusions about how mechanical hands like these could work on a larger scale. There is also the issue of using it for long periods of time. Sørensen only used his mech hand off and on.

Watch the hand in motion in the video below:



[Livescience]