In 2017, Michel Roccati was in a motorbike accident that left his lower body completely paralyzed. In 2020, he walked again, thanks to a breakthrough new spinal cord implant.
The implant sends electrical pulses to his muscles, mimicking the action of the brain, and could one day help people with severe spinal injuries stand, walk, and exercise.
It builds on long-running research into using electrical pulses to improve quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries, including a 2018 study by the same team that helped people with partial lower-body paralysis walk again.
“It was a very emotional experience,” Roccati told journalists of the first time the electrical pulses were activated and he took a step.
He was one of three patients involved in the study, published [February 7] in the journal Nature Medicine, all of them unable to move their lower bodies after accidents.
Related on the SLP
But the three were able to take steps shortly after the six-centimeter implant was inserted and its pulses were fine-tuned.
“These electrodes were longer and larger than the ones we had previously implanted, and we could access more muscles thanks to this new technology,” said Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at the Lausanne University Hospital who helped lead the trial.
