Woman with bionic arm regains sense of touch

A woman fitted with the world's first "bionic arm" controlled by thought alone has been given back a sense of feeling.

Claudia Mitchell, 26, a former US marine, regained the ability to carry out simple tasks such as cutting up food when she was fitted with the prosthetic arm last year.

Now doctors have re-routed the ends of arm nerves to a patch of skin on her chest — allowing her to regain the sensation of having her lost hand touched.

The new technique — called targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR) — involves re-routing nerves that once controlled the patient's arm to a patch on the chest, where they grow into muscles. Electrodes on the surface of the chest skin pick up brain signals from the nerves and send signals to operate the artificial arm.