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Second, and more importantly, the research team developed the stimulation to work in conjunction with the proprioceptive sensory system of patients.
Proprioception is your ability to know exactly where your legs are at all times, allowing you to precisely coordinate their movements, Oxley explained.
"When you close your eyes, you know where your leg is without looking at it," Oxley said. "A complex network of information returning to the spinal cord of the leg indicates where the leg is in the space."
The researchers discovered that continuous nerve stimulation overloads the proprioceptive system of a person.
"If you stimulate the whole spinal cord, you will activate all the muscles at the same time and block the movement of the legs," said Courtine.
When stimulation was powered by pulses working in conjunction with the proprioceptive system, patients achieved remarkable improvement in their ability to move previously paralyzed legs in coordination, the researchers said.
The three study participants were able to walk with weight support after just a week spent calibrating nerve stimulation based on their individual brain patterns, Courtine said.
"They have discovered how to deliver these stimulation pulses into the spinal cord at the right pace, at the right pace, so as not to disturb that proprioceptive sensory system," said Oxley.
According to researchers, long, high-intensity workouts appear to have triggered the nervous system's ability to rearrange nerve pathways around damaged nerves. As a result, the motor function of the patients is improved even when the electrical stimulation has been deactivated.
Another patient, Sebastian Tobler, said he could now walk a few hands-free steps in the lab using electrical stimulation. It can even climb outside, thanks to a special three-wheel cycle that uses manual and manual cranks.
"I can bear more and more weight on my legs and have more and more control with my legs," said Tobler, 47, who was completely paralyzed from both legs after a mountain bike accident in 2013.
Patients received watches that adapt electrical stimulation to their needs based on voice commands.
But based on this research, none of the researchers would say that a complete cure for paralysis is ongoing.
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