Researchers have found that precisely targeted electrical stimulation of the brain can recreate a sense of touch in people with spinal cord injuries. Over a combined 27 years of implant use, the systems delivered about 168 million electrical pulses to the brain without causing any serious adverse events. It provides rare evidence that artificial touch signals can remain safe and relatively stable not just for months, but for years. In this case, tiny electrical pulses were delivered to the somatosensory cortex, the region that processes touch from the body. By 2015, the researchers were stimulating the sensory cortex to add a sense of touch.