Shocking electrical stimulation that allows people with spinal cord injuries to walk



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The electrical stimulation has regained the ability to walk three adult men suffering from a spinal cord injury, according to the scientific journal Nature. The neuroscientist Grgoire Courtine of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) was responsible for leading this clinical trial conducted in eight patients with spinal cord injury for more than four years and one year. partial or complete paralysis of the lower limb. .

The people responsible for these tests used a device consisting of implanting a stimulator in the abdomen, connected to a field of electrodes located in the lumbar region, the area where the cells that control the leg muscles are located .

After implantation, according to the British publication, a map of each patient was made to know where and how to apply the stimuli generated in real time. This device is wirelessly controlled, simulating the extension and flexion that man's legs do when walking and causing new neural activity.

After rehabilitation, patients could walk with partial support or with a walker, as well as with the help of an epidural electrical stimulation device, but they were finally able to recover voluntary movements in the legs without this support. These results establish, in Nature, a technological framework intended to improve the neurological recovery after a spinal cord injury.

This type of disease interrupts communication within the nervous system, resulting in the loss of essential neurological functions and paralysis.

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