Cyber Nerves

Artificial nerves that allow people with false limbs to feel the heat from a coffee cup or the touch of another person's hand are being developed by scientists.
'Cyber-nerves' are created from a revolutionary material called Pedot that conducts electricity like a wire and which can encourage the growth of new cells.
Strands of Pedot have already been used to connect severed nerves in animals and restore use of defunct muscles.
Researchers are hoping the first tests on people, which could one day help amputees to feel heat, cold and touch with their prosthetic limbs, will start in three years.
Their goal is to splice strands of the material into a patient's nervous system and then connect the cyber-nerves to sensors built into artificial fingers, toes and hands.

Cederna’s research was unveiled last week at the annual American plastic surgeons’ conference in Seattle. It is being funded by the American military and is one of a number of efforts to improve the treatment of people with missing limbs, sparked partly by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since the beginning of last year, 55 British servicemen have had at least one limb amputated.

The most advanced computerised limbs fitted at the Headley Court defence medical centre in Surrey are moved wirelessly by controllers in the patient’s pocket.