That might soon be possible, as after eight years of work, researchers have created a small patch of artificial skin that sends pressure sensations to brain cells.

"The aim of our research was to make a synthetic skin that communicates information about pressure in the same way that real skin does," Alex Chortos, a researcher at Bao's Research Group at Stanford University, told me. "We're creating electronic devices that communicate information about the surrounding directly into the body in a way that the brain can understand."

The artificial skin is made of flexible, organic materials, and in a paper published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers describe its two-layered composition. While the upper layer contains pressure sensors, the lower layer contains an electronic circuit that converts pressure sensing signals into electrical pulses that can be communicated with mice brain cells.