可以向大脑发送压感的人造皮肤

Stanford engineers have created a plastic "skin" that can detect how hard it is being pressed and generate an electric signal to deliver this sensory ² input ³ directly to a living brain cell. Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, has spent a decade trying to develop a material that mimics ⁴ skin's ability to flex ⁵ and heal, while also serving as the sensor ¹ net that sends touch, temperature and pain signals to the brain. Ultimately she wants to create a flexible electronic fabric ⁶ embedded ⁷ with sensors ⁸ that could cover a prosthetic limb and replicate ⁹ some of skin's sensory functions., ,Bao's work, reported today in Science, takes another step toward her goal by replicating ¹⁰ one aspect of touch, the sensory mechanism ¹¹ that enables us to distinguish the pressure difference between a limp handshake and a firm grip., ,"This is the first time a flexible, skin-like material has been able to detect pressure and also transmit a signal to a component ¹² of the nervous system," said Bao, who led the 17-person research team responsible for the achievement., ,Benjamin Tee, a recent doctoral graduate in electrical engineering; Alex Chortos, a doctoral candidate in materials science and engineering; and Andre Berndt, a postdoctoral scholar in bioengineering, were the lead authors on the Science paper.