The device implanted in the brain sends signals to the limb; although it is progress, clarify, does not reverse the
NEW yORK five years ago, Ian Burkhart dove sea and hit a wave on the beaches of the Outer Banks, North Carolina. As a result of this unusual accident, he broke his neck and lost forever the feeling in his legs and arms. Although of forever was to be seen.
Yesterday, doctors reported that Burkhart, 24, regained control of her right hand and her fingers through a technological device that carries your thoughts directly to limb muscles, bypassing the injury to his spine. The medical achievement, which was published in the scientific journal Nature, is the first report of resuscitation of a member in a person with deep paralysis.
Two years ago, Burkhart they implanted a chip in the brain. Sitting in a laboratory, and a wrist strap attached to the implant through a computer, the young man managed to learn, through repetition and a lot of practice to pour water from a bottle, take a spoon and stir, and even to play guitar in a video game.
“It’s amazing,” describes Burkhart. The accident he suffered left him paralyzed from the chest down. However, it retains some movement in his shoulders and biceps.
The new technology can not reverse paralysis, the researchers say. In fact, Burkhart could only have movement in his hand while connected to the computer lab. Scientists point out that much needed to allow the system to make a significant driving independence.
However, the field of neural engineering advances precipitously. Through brain implants, scientists can identify the different signals from the brain and connect them with specific movements. He had already achieved some patients move with thought a cursor on a screen, there are primates learned to use skillfully a robotic arm only through neural signals, and has also been shown in monkeys that can move muscles on the sole thought of it.
the new study shows that members of the body that are not directly connected to the brain can recover some of their fundamental skills thanks to this “bypass” that “elusive” spinal injury.
After the accident, Burkhart was in rehab for months in Atlanta, before continuing with his treatment at Ohio State University. There told the doctors who wanted to participate in experimental treatments.
In 2014, a brain scan allowed the medical team identify the parts of his brain that controlled the movements of the hand. This is the motor cortex, located on the left side of the brain just above the ear. During surgery, doctors did tests on brain tissue exposed to further refine the location of the motor centers of the hand.
“It was a three-hour operation, of which one and a half was dedicated to find the exact location, “says Ali Rezai, the surgeon and director of the Center for Neuromodulation Ohio State University. He was the doctor who implanted it in the exact place a chip the size of a pea containing 96 microE-lectrodos filamentary responsible individually register the impulses that trigger neurons.
After the postoperative period, Burkhart began training: several weekly sessions in the lab, trying to go hand movements. The firing patterns of neurons that registers the chip pass through a cable running through the neck to a computer.
Scientists at Battelle Memorial Institute, an NGO in Columbus, Ohio, dedicated to developing medical devices and instruments, designed the software decoding patterns. According to one of the researchers of the organization, Herbert Bresler, the code should be recalibrated almost all sessions. “The computer was learning as he did Burkhart” he says. For the young, she says, the training was grueling. From the screen of a computer, an avatar different movements told him I should try. “The effort of concentration I had to do was really huge,” he recalls. After many months, he no longer needed an avatar will indicate the movements.
After a year of training, Burkhart could now lift a bottle, pour the contents into a jar, take a spoon and stir.
beyond enthusiasm, doctors warn that much progress needed to make the system of “bypass” is practical to use, affordable and less invasive, which will be achieved surely wireless technology. But the current improvement of Burkhart reached for rehabilitation specialists reclassify their disability, who went from being functional severe level C5 to less severe.
Translation Jaime Arrambide
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