Bionic limbs will one day sense the grass under prosthetic feet

(Credit: Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago )

It sounds like something straight out of science fiction: artificial limbs that not only move, flex, and feel like their flesh counterparts, but also respond directly to one's thoughts and even translate sensory feedback -- the feeling of grass beneath one's feet or the sensation of a limb floating in space -- straight back to the brain.

Thanks to an aggressive push in funding from the US military in an effort to the improve the lives of injured veterans, those advancements are no longer such farfetched dreams. While the idea of "Blade Runner"-level prosthetics is still a far-off fantasy, impressively capable, thought-controlled bionic limbs are now a modern-day reality thanks to pioneering research between the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), DARPA, and a growing sector of companies developing the next generation of artificial limbs.

Just last month, the RIC announced that its research in bionics has yielded the first thought-controlled robotic leg. The research had already seen its fair share of headlines -- including a climb of 103 flights of stairs on the single prosthetic unit -- but the team led by Dr. Levi Hargrove waited to conclusively publish its findings in the The New England Journal of Medicine. The bionic hardware, which was more than eight years in the making, was coupled with a groundbreaking approach --targeted muscle reinnervation surgery -- that empowers the brain to move parts of the bionic limb with nerves that are rerouted to healthy muscles.