In a medical first, brain implant allows paralyzed man to feel again
Source: Washington Post
In a medical first, brain implant allows paralyzed man to feel again
By Amy Ellis Nutt
https://twitter.com/amyellisnutt
October 13 at 12:00 PM
For the first time, scientists have helped a paralyzed man experience the sense of touch through the use of a mind-controlled robotic arm.
The cutting-edge experiment, a collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, involves electrodes smaller than a grain of sand that were implanted in the sensory cortex of the man's brain. Researchers then stimulated this region, which is associated with sensation in the right hand, and effectively bypassed his damaged spinal cord. The subject was already connected to a robotic arm, and when a researcher pressed the fingers of the prosthesis, he felt the pressure in the right fingers of his paralyzed hand.
The results of the experiment, which have been repeated over several months with 30-year-old Nathan Copeland, offer a critical breakthrough in the restoration of function in people with paralyzed limbs: the ability not just to move those limbs but to feel them. ... The research will be featured Thursday afternoon when President Obama visits Pittsburgh for a White House Frontiers Conference on advances in science, medicine and technology.
Nathan Copeland was a teenager when his car spun out of control on a rainy winter night more than a decade ago. The western Pennsylvania man was diagnosed with tetraplegia, paralysis of all four limbs. He has some ability to move his shoulders. ... Five years ago, he volunteered for the research at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. There, a team of surgeons, biomedical engineers and doctors of rehabilitative medicine had been toiling with the technology that, they hoped, would enable paralyzed individuals to again feel sensations -- something far more difficult to achieve than just movement.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/10/13/in-a-medical-first-brain-implant-allows-paralyzed-man-to-feel-again/
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