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  • Review Article
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Sensory feedback for limb prostheses in amputees

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 925–939 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Commercial prosthetic devices currently do not provide natural sensory information on the interaction with objects or movements. The subsequent disadvantages include unphysiological walking with a prosthetic leg and difficulty in controlling the force exerted with a prosthetic hand, thus creating health issues. Restoring natural sensory feedback from the prosthesis to amputees is an unmet clinical need. An optimal device should be able to elicit natural sensations of touch or proprioception, by delivering the complex signals to the nervous system that would be produced by skin, muscles and joints receptors. This Review covers the various neurotechnological approaches that have been proposed for the development of the optimal sensory feedback restoration device for arm and leg amputees.

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Fig. 1: Sensory feedback restoration devices tested in humans.
Fig. 2: Artificial sensory feedback is inspired by nature.

a, Bottom left (grey hand) and far right (brain), reproduced with permission from pixy.org; bottom right (remapping approach), adapted with permission from iStock by Getty Images/Francesco Maria Petrini; bottom, second from left (sensorized glove), reproduced with permission from ref. 75, under a Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0; top, second from left (sensorized insole), adapted with permission from ref. 84, AAAS. b, Left, reproduced with permission from ref. 109, Elsevier. d, Hands, adapted with permission from ref. 112, Elsevier Biomedical Press; feet, adapted with permission from ref. 18, American Physiological Society

Fig. 3: Electrodes used in human experiments.

panels reproduced with permission from: a,j, ref. 113, under a Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0; b,f, ref. 39, IOP; c, ref. 114, IEEE; d, ref. 40, Elsevier; e, ref. 49, Wiley; g,h, ref. 54, IEEE; i, ref. 63, Springer Nature Ltd; l,m, ref. 116, River Publishers; n, ref. 56, IEEE. Panel k adapted with permission from ref. 115, IOP

Fig. 4: Sensation characterization for upper-limb amputees according to different neural approaches.

TSR sensation location, reproduced with permission from ref. 80, under a Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0; cuff sensation location and plot, adapted with permission from ref. 69, AAAS; FINE sensation location and plot, adapted with permission from ref. 53, AAAS; tf-LIFE sensation location and picture, adapted with permission from ref. 41, IOP; TIME sensation location and plot, reproduced with permission from ref. 10, Wiley; USEA sensation location, reproduced with permission from ref. 71, IOP; USEA plot, adapted with permission from ref. 66, AAAS; TSR, FINE and USEA pictures, adapted with permission from ref. 99, under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Fig. 5: Sensation characterization for lower-limb amputees according to different neural approaches.

TIME sensation location, reproduced with permission from ref. 84, AAAS; FINE picture, adapted with permission from ref. 99, under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; AMI sensation location and plot, adapted with permission from ref. 86, AAAS; FINE sensation location, adapted with permission from ref. 82, under a Creative Commons license CC BY 3.0

Fig. 6: Biomimetic model-based encoding for natural sensory feedback.

dynamic skin indentation in sensing panel and all of biomimetic sensory encoding panel, reproduced with permission from ref. 65, Elsevier; all of electro-neural modelling panel, adapted with permission from ref. 104, under a Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0

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Data availability

The data and calculations that support the findings of this Review are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme FeelAgain (grant agreement no. 759998), by H2020-EIC-FTI-2018-2020 GoSafe (grant agreement no. 870144), by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and Innosuisse under the Bridge Proof of Concept programme (MYLEG no. 193724), SNSF grant MOVEIT (no. 205321_197271) and Innosuisse grant (no. 47462.1 IP-ICT). The funders had no role in the manuscript preparation or submission.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Stanisa Raspopovic, Giacomo Valle, Francesco Maria Petrini.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Neuroengineering, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Stanisa Raspopovic, Giacomo Valle & Francesco Maria Petrini

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  1. Stanisa Raspopovic
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  2. Giacomo Valle
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  3. Francesco Maria Petrini
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Contributions

S.R., G.V. and F.M.P. conceived the Review, edited the manuscript and made the figures. S.R. wrote the section ‘The role of materials in the development of neuroprostheses’. G.V. wrote the section ‘Bionic limb applications’. F.M.P. wrote the section ‘Sensory feedback is an unmet need for prosthetic users’. S.R., G.V. and F.M.P. wrote the section ‘Prospective and big picture’. All authors authorized submission of the manuscript, but the final submission decision was made by the corresponding author.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stanisa Raspopovic.

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Competing interests

S.R. and F.M.P. hold shares of SensArs Neuroprosthetics Sarl, a start-up company dealing with the commercialization of neurocontrolled artificial limbs. G.V. declares no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Materials thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Raspopovic, S., Valle, G. & Petrini, F.M. Sensory feedback for limb prostheses in amputees. Nat. Mater. 20, 925–939 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-00966-9

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