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A revolutionary treatment involving electrical stimulation of the spine allowed paralyzed patients to walk, apparently reactivating nerve connections and giving hope to people even years after accidents.
A team composed of neurosurgeons and engineers used electrical impulses targeted results, triggering the muscles individually in a sequence, such as the brain.
The impulses are produced by an implant placed on the spine, carefully aligned with the areas that control the muscles of the lower body. And until now, the results are promising.
"This clinical trial has given me hope again," said 35-year-old Gert-Jan Oskam, who had been told that he would not work after a car accident in 2011.
months of treatment, he can now travel short distances even without the help of electrical stimulation.
This is the culmination of "more than a decade of extensive research," said Gregoire Courtine, neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. research, told AFP.
Earlier trials used what is known as continuous electrical stimulation of the spine, which worked well in rats but produced less impressive results in humans.
However, after several months of training with targeted legumes. "Our three participants were able to activate their previously paralyzed muscles without electrical stimulation," said Courtine.
"The result was completely unexpected", he added, in a video published with the publication of the research in the journal Nature. "They could even take a few steps on the surface without any support, hands free. For me, seeing this recovery was incredible.
The study sequences clearly show how targeted stimulation differs from continuous impulses. With targeted stimulation, a patient walks almost plainly, feet in the air. Continuous stimulation, on the other hand, produces a jerky movement, the feet dragging and unbalancing.
And the targeted pulsation badociated with an intensive physiotherapy program was apparently able to reactivate the nerve connections that had become dormant when patients were injured.
David Mzee, 28, was completely paralyzed from the left leg after an accident in 2010, but after the five-month program, he can walk up to two hours with a walker using electrical stimulation or walking over short distances.
Stimulation begins with a pulse directed at a muscle to induce the patient to start moving, for example a step. Sensors on the feet detect movement as the initial phase of a step and send additional targeted pulses to trigger the muscle movements needed to perform the step and repeat it. At the same time, patients plan to move these muscles and walk.
Because brain neurons trigger almost exactly when electrical impulses stimulate muscles, the technique ultimately seems to "reconnect" the brain and muscles. Patients can then control muscle movement even without electrical triggers.
"It was amazing to see all these patients moving their legs without electrical stimulation," said Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at the University Hospital of Lausanne, who contributed to the
In an evaluation Independent, Chet Moritz, an badociate professor in the Department of Medicine of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington, praised this work.
"The field of spinal cord injury is about to take a giant step in treatment. He wrote:
Courtine however cautioned that it remained "very important to calibrate expectations," noting that the three patients still relied mainly on their wheelchairs.
is focused only on patients who had retained some sensation in the lower body.
To go forward, Courtine said that he hoped to see the technique combined with biolo medical treatments involving nerve repair.
He and Bloch founded a start-up that will refine the treatment and test it on people soon after a spinal injury, while the technique will probably be more successful.
There is still much work to be done to change the lives of these people, "said Courtine.
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