Paraplegia has learned: How three paralyzed walk again

Table of Contents Page 1 – How Three Paralyzed Return to Page 2 Learned – Electrostimulation Wakes the Spinal Cord On one side, read

Since time immemorial, the drug can not do much if the spinal cord has been damaged and someone can no longer control their legs. During road accidents or cancerous metastases exerting pressure on the spinal cord or other diseases each year, 1,000 to 1,500 people in Germany undergo a paralyzed cross section. For you, the following applies: the loss of their movements is largely irreversible, it can not be repaired.

For decades, you do not want to accept doctors. Many dream that paraplegics will walk again. You are already far from this goal, suggests a study published in Nature magazine (Wagner et al., 2018). The authors of the University of Lausanne study implanted patients and electrodes stimulated the spinal cord. Combined with intensive physical therapy, three people treated were able to walk again.

Stimulation in walking training

In transverse paralysis of the protected spine, the spinal cord is injured. The nervous pathways coming from the brain and the motor commands to transport, etc., the traction towards the brain and the sensations ahead, can be destroyed, severed and the body of the nerve cell. The mobility of people and the sensations you feel in the affected areas of the body suffer. What the exact impact depends on the level of the injury. The nerve pathways near the cervical spine are severed and are mainly paralyzed from the arms and legs. In addition, the most affected sensory disturbances of the reports from the neck. The spinal cord of the thoracic spine, or even the region of the lumbar spine, is damaged, usually only the legs or specific muscle groups affected.

In the case of the new study, the last was the case: the three patients had suffered on average more than four years ago, a spinal cord injury, were paralyzed hüftabwärts. The researchers put them in a small operation for a flea in the spinal cord, which should stimulate the posterior roots of the spinal cord. This is the area where the sensitive fibers, and with them the information of the probe and Lagesinns of the legs, penetrate into the spinal cord. For a limited time, as you walked, the current of the chip would pulsate below the injury to the underlying nerves. In a second study, which has just been published, describes how the team of researchers has also been improved, such as improving the stimulation pattern (Nature Neuroscience: Wagner et al., 2018). ).

At the end of a three-month training, there were three patients able to walk on a treadmill and with AIDS, like a Walker, even at home. Scientists in Lausanne also developed a mobile version of spinal cord stimulation via a tablet and a voice command, which allowed patients outside the laboratory to walk or move on an elongated car.