A Danish man has become the first in the world to be fitted with a prosthetic hand that can feel.

Dennis Aabo Sørensen lost his hand in a fireworks incident nine years ago, but has now had the ability to feel restored by a ground-breaking bionic device.

The hand was developed by a team led by Silvestro Micera, a neural engineer at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

The hand was fitted by Micera and his team, who connected touch sensors in the artificial hand to electrodes surgically embedded in the remains of nerves in Sørensen's upper arm.

Computer algorithms convert the signals from the sensors into a form the nerves can detect, generating the sensation of touch.

Sensory feedback has become one of the most important areas in modern prosthetics, as it is fundamental to a deeper level of integration with the biological body.

Researchers say that as more prostheses are developed to be controlled by message from the brain, reciprocal information from the device would be a vital addition.

Sørensen is the first person to test the prosthesis, and he has only had it for a few days but if early indications are correct, the system will soon improve the function of many future false limbs, and the quality of life for their users.

Researchers have composed this article to describe their work.