Paralyzed people can walk again with a new treatment

Swiss doctors give hope to paralysis. Even destroyed nerve pathways should be able to be reactivated by targeted electrical stimulation – and allow people to walk again.

Paralyzed people can again be limited by targeted electrical stimulation of their spine, even without help. According to a study by the journal "Nature", Swiss doctors have discovered that stimulation can even reactivate the nerve pathways stopped by an accident.

A team of neurologists and engineers used an implant to apply targeted electrical impulses to activate the muscles sequentially, as the brain does in healthy people.

Paralyzed people can travel short distances

The result: the three subjects were able to run again over short distances. "The clinical test has given me hope," said 35-year-old Gert-Jan Oskam, who was told after a traffic accident in 2011 that he could never walk again. After five months of treatment, he is now able to walk short distances even without electrical stimulation.

Even David Mzee, 28, whose left leg is completely paralyzed since an accident in 2010, can now run up to two hours with a walker through the implant. Without igniting electrical impulses, it creates short distances.

Activate paralyzed muscles

According to the Swiss neurologist Grégoire Courtine, these results are the result of "more than a decade of extensive research". In previous studies, continuous electrical stimulation of the spine was undertaken. It worked well in rats but less well in humans. After several months of training with targeted impulses, the three subjects were able to activate their previously paralyzed muscles even without electrical stimulation.

"The result was completely unexpected," says Courtine in a video published by Nature. "You can even take a few steps without any support, hands free." With targeted stimulation, a patient can walk almost normally, while his feet roll evenly. In continuous stimulation, the movements are more jerky. In addition to intensive physiotherapy, targeted stimulation can also reactivate nerve connections between the brain and muscles.

"Great leap forward"

Stimulation begins with a pulse that targets a muscle and triggers a movement of the patient, such as a step. The sensors on the feet recognize the movement as the first phase of a walk and send extra impulses to trigger the muscle movements needed to perform the walk. At the same time, patients plan to move and leave their muscles.

Because the brain's neurons work almost simultaneously with the electrical impulses applied to the muscles, there will eventually be a connection between the brain and the muscles. This allows the patients to control the muscles without impulses. Chet Moritz of the University of Washington said in an independent evaluation of the study that it was "a huge leap forward" in the field of spinal cord injury.

Courtine warns against too many expectations. The three subjects still depend on their wheelchairs, he says. In addition, only patients with residual residual sensation in the lower body were eligible for the study. With his colleague Jocelyne Bloch, also involved in the study, he founded a startup to advance technology and investigate patients who have just been injured in the spinal cord.