The Future of Touch: How Neural Networks are Revolutionizing Prosthetics

You might be familiar with The Amazing Spiderman where Dr. Connors, the villain, has an amputated arm. He tests reptilian DNA to see how to regenerate tissue. Instead of simply regrowing his arm, he becomes the Lizard and terrorizes New York City. This story was focused on the dangers and corruption of greed, but also reflects a human desire and reveals a sympathetic side: to restore something that was lost. 

Nowadays, scientists are following the same dream that Dr. Connors was pursuing, minus the whole turning into a villain issue. People are developing something even more incredible: bionic limbs that can think, feel, and move just like a biological limb can. Welcome to the world of neuroprosthetics, where the line between humans and machines is slowly merging. 

What are Prosthetics and Why Do they Matter?

Prosthetics are appliances designed to replace missing body structures for those who were born without or have gone through a traumatic experience. In history, prosthetics used to be purely mechanical and used available resources like wooden legs, hook hands, and other contraptions that are able to grab and hold objects. While these prosthetics had some functionality to it, they had many issues from skin irritation to pressure discomfort. Imagine trying to pick up an egg and you can’t feel how hard you are squeezing it. That is the feeling for millions of people suffering with this disability. 

Now, the field is evolving rapidly. There has been new prosthetic research completely restoring the human experience of touch, movement, and sensation . Researchers and scientists are asking more questions to further the impact of this field like: Can we create limbs that directly interact with the brain? Can prosthetics perceive temperature, texture, and pressure?

The answer is, increasingly, yes.

Training Machines to Speak like the Brain

The most exciting aspect of this new generation of prosthetics are neural networks. This includes our brains and AI systems that are still learning how to process similar thoughts and actions. At the core of the revolution are BCIs or brain-computer interfaces establishing a connection between neural signals and prosthetic devices.  

How it works begins with our hands. Once we conduct a hand movement, our brain sends electrical impulses to our muscles and these nerves will always release to the according limb even if it is amputated. Today, scientists are developing brain-computer interface systems that can detect and interpret nerve impulses immediately (Willsey et al., 2025). With these methods, scientists were able to find that prosthetics were responsive and even reached 97-98% accuracy in individual finger and wrist motions using artificial intelligence agents (Diu et al., 2022). These results reveal a major step towards restoring the limb as an extension of the body through AI systems and actively work as a biological device again for the patient. 

At Stanford’s Neural Prosthetics Translational Lab, scientists try to take their research to the next level where they attempt to translate neural activity to speech on the screen in front of them (NPTL, 2025). This kind of technology uses machine learning and advanced computational methods to learn the specific patient’s neural patterns and then creates a personal movement dictionary connecting the brain activity to the patient’s speech and movement.  

Making Prosthetics Feel

Going back to our Spiderman reference, Dr. Curt Connors was able to feel with his one hand. He could sense temperature, feel textures, and experience pressure, all of which he missed out on with his amputated limb. Early prosthetics lacked this sensory dimension, but now, the movement is changing that. 

Prosthetics today directly connect with brains to provide live sensory data. Studies show that they are able to recreate the nuanced feeling of hands through electrical stimulation (Greenspon et al., 2024). Researchers conduct these experiments by placing electrodes in certain parts of the brain in order to trigger the response for sensation and tactile feedback in the respective limbs. This is revolutionary for patients as it proves to reduce phantom limb pain for patients, where they still feel pain sensation despite the loss of a limb. The future of neuroprosthetics aims to make artificial touch as immersive and intuitive as possible and now scientists are on the path to finding a way. 

Osseointegration

Perhaps the most impressive breakthrough in this field is figuring out how to implement this into the body for it to coexist with the patient comfortably. Conventional prosthetics often cause discomfort, limited control and even skin irritation. Osseointegration is the integration of titanium implants into the skeletal tissue, a method to attach artificial limbs without discomfort and allows for machine learning control through embedded electrodes and sensors (Ortiz-Catalán et al., 2023). This innovation is crucial for pushing towards products that are more viable for daily use among patients. 

In a critical clinical trial, researchers experimented on a patient with a traumatic injury to her right hand. Surgeons implemented a prosthesis which then attached the bionic hand to her forearm bones by placing the titanium implants directly on there. The result proved successful allowing the patient to control all five phantom fingers at a completion rate of 95% in the post motion test given (Ortiz-Catalán et al., 2023). Additionally, her sensations prompted consistent neural responses revealing exceptional sensory feedback. This surgery proved to be very helpful as it substantially reduced patient pain as phantom limb pain decreased as well as discomfort from the prosthetics. This allowed the patient to use the prosthesis for over three years improving her overall quality of life and independence. 

Conclusions

Scientists from so many varied fields are merging to accomplish something incredible in the field of neuroprosthetics, going above and beyond biological capabilities. The goal is to design something that doesn’t wear out, use sensors and processors, and beautifully blend human and computer communication. 

This has shown how possibilities are endless and can immensely improve the lives of those struggling without body parts. Dr. Connors was wrong to turn the whole city into lizards, but his pain and suffering can be empathized with across the world. Advanced technology today is able to help amputees and paraplegics communicate with others, move again, and reestablish their neural networks. 

In the future, prosthetics may even become so progressive that its biological counterparts will be indistinguishable. Machines will be controlled by our thoughts and actions in the split of a second and move so effortlessly that people will forget they are even wearing a prosthetic. Restoring something so significant in our daily lives is truly life-changing for these individuals and merging it with technology can help us achieve that goal faster and make movement more accessible everywhere. 

References

Diu, K., Luu, Nguyen, A., Jiang, M., Drealan, M., Xu, J., Wu, T., Tam, W.-K., Zhao, W., Lim, B., Overstreet, C., Zhao, Q., Cheng, J., Keefer, E., & Yang, Z. (3 C.E.). Artificial Intelligence Enables Real-Time and Intuitive Control of Prostheses via Nerve Interface.

Greenspon, C. M., Valle, G., Shelchkova, N. D., Hobbs, T. G., Ceci Verbaarschot, Callier, T., Berger-Wolf, E. I., Okorokova, E. V., Hutchison, B. C., Efe Dogruoz, Sobinov, A. R., Jordan, P. M., Weiss, J. M., Fitzgerald, E. E., Prasad, D., Driesche, A. V., He, Q., Liu, F., Kirsch, R. F., & Miller, J. P. (2024). Evoking stable and precise tactile sensations via multi-electrode intracortical microstimulation of the somatosensory cortex. Nature Biomedical Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-024-01299-z

NPTL. (2025). NPTL; Stanford University. https://nptl.stanford.edu/

Ortiz-Catalán, M., Zbinden, J., Millenaar, J., D’Accolti, D., Controzzi, M., Clemente, F., Cappello, L., Earley, E. J., Enzo Mastinu, Justyna Kolankowska, Munoz-Novoa, M., Stewe Jönsson, Njel, C., Paolo Sassu, & Rickard Brånemark. (2023). A highly integrated bionic hand with neural control and feedback for use in daily life. Science Robotics, 8(83). https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.adf7360

Willsey, M. S., Shah, N. P., Avansino, D. T., Hahn, N. V., Jamiolkowski, R. M., Kamdar, F. B., Hochberg, L. R., Willett, F. R., & Henderson, J. M. (2025). A high-performance brain–computer interface for finger decoding and quadcopter game control in an individual with paralysis. Nature Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03341-8