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A 26-year-old man who is paralysed in both legs has walked for the first time in five years – just by thinking about it. He is the first person to have his brain activity recorded and used to control a muscle-stimulating device in his legs.
Many rehabilitation clinics already offer functional electric stimulation (FES) devices, which activate the nerves that innervate leg muscles at the push of a button. But people with upper-body paralysis are not always able to operate the FES in this way. The new system bypasses the button and returns control to the brain.
“We want to re-establish the connection between the brain and the leg muscles, to bring back the function that was once present,” says Zoran Nenadic at the University of California Irvine. To do that, Nenadic and his colleagues combined an FES system with a brain-computer interface.
The team developed an electrode cap that picks up the brainwaves created when a person thinks specifically about walking or standing still. They tailored the device to pick up brain signals from their volunteer – a man who has had little sensation below his shoulder blades for five years.
Read full, original post: Paralysed man uses mind control to walk again
