Reach out and touch someone — literally.
A breakthrough medical device able to simulate the “natural,” “real-life” sensation of human touch is being offered up as a cure for isolation — and could allow loved ones to enjoy the sensation of physical contact, even if they’re continents apart.
Researchers at University College London (UCL) have created the wearable technology — a small silicon fingertip connector called an innovative bio-inspired haptic system (BAMH) — to pair with a small machine that uses vibrations to stimulate nerve cells, The Independent reported.
Researcher Dr. Sara Abad explained how the device may be used to give the sensation of hand-holding for remote embrace, “incorporating touch into our virtual social interactions.”
“For instance, with the pandemic and globalization, it’s very likely that you have family that is not living in the same town as you,” Abad said. “For social bonding, which is important, you need touch, but video calls don’t provide that.”
While four key stimuli nerve cells can be activated to give a user a “realistic sense of touch,” there are other fascinating potential uses for the technology as well.
In robot-aided surgeries, for example, BAMH can scan and analyze if they are working with skin tissue showing indications of cancer. It can also be used in the treatment of metacarpal tunnel syndrome as well. It could also one day be used to handle radioactive material from a distance.
Up next, researchers want to expand their experimentation group in a clinical trial — all to learn more about how people may lose their feeling of touch over time.
The researchers are looking to recruit at least 10 people experiencing loss of sensation for a clinical trial in the next few months to understand more about how the sense of touch degrades over time.
“We want to understand [if] can we detect, over some time a degradation in [touch] sensitivity,” said Professor Helge Wurdemann.
“And then we want to feed that data back to the clinician to then understand if they can, maybe adopt their therapy in order to slow down the loss in (touch) perception.”
