PICTURE
ALAIN HERZOG/EPFL
IMPACTA CURE FOR
PARALYSIS
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QCPQMCNPùC?E?GO
@YAlvin SoonIt’s a remarkable age we live in when lab animals
and a few people have controlled computer cursors
and robotic arms using their thoughts, through brain
implants.
Now, researchers at Sawitzerland’s École
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and an international
network of collaborators are taking things a step further.
They’re wirelessly connecting brain implants to electrical
stimulators on the body, in the hopes that people can
regain control over their paralyzed limbs.
They’ve already had some success. In their labs, a
primate with spinal cord injury regained control of its
paralyzed leg through this “neuroprosthetic interface.”
The interface decoded brain activity associated with
walking movements, and relayed this information to
the spinal cord, below its injury, through electrodes that
stimulated the leg muscles to move.
A feasibility clinical study has begun to test the
interface in people with spinal cord injury. Neuroscientist
Grégoire Courtine, who led the collaboration, cautions
that it may still take several years before the intervention
can be completely tested. But if successful, this could
pave the way to actually reversing paralysis.MAY 2017 | +:0 37