Cunjiang Yu, Bill D. Cook Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, said the work represents a significant step toward the development of prosthetics that could directly connect with the peripheral nerves in biological tissues, offering neurological function to artificial limbs, as well as toward advances in soft neurorobots capable of thinking and making judgments. Yu is corresponding author for a paper describing the work, published in Science Advances. He is also a principal investigator with the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston. "When human skin is touched, you feel it," Yu said to describe the human capabilities the new device can mimic. "The feeling originates in your brain, through neural pathways from your skin to the brain."