[ad_1]
Five years after being paralyzed in a snowmobile accident, a man in the United States learned to walk again with an electric implant, which represents a potential advance for spinal cord injured people.
A team of doctors at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota said the man, using a front-wheel rollator, could cover the equivalent of the length of a football field, emitting commands from his brain to transfer weight and maintain the balance. thought impossible for paralyzed patients.
The man, now aged 29, has fractured the spine in the middle of his back when he crashed into his snowmobile in 2013. He is completely paralyzed in size and can not move or feel something in the middle of his chest.
In the study, whose findings were published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, the doctors implanted in 2016 a small electronic device in the spine of the man.
The wireless implant, the size of an AA battery, generates electrical impulses to stimulate the nerves that, because of the injury, have been disconnected from the brain permanently.
"What this teaches us is that networks of neurons located below a spinal cord injury can still function after paralysis," said Kendall Lee, neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic and author principal of the study.
A few weeks after starting the aircraft, the man began to take his first steps since the accident, but was still hanging on a harness.
Surprisingly, after several other rehabilitation and physiotherapy sessions, he was able to support most of his body weight and take steps on a treadmill.
"We have not limited our expectations and have continued to progress safely while gaining office," said AFP Kristin Zhao, director of the Technology Support and Restoration Technology Laboratory. the Mayo Clinic.
"This is important because the patient's mind was able to drive the movement in the legs," she said.
Although the device was able to help generate power and control in the patient's lower body, he did nothing to restore the sensation in his legs.
It was difficult at first. Without the physical sensation of walking in his brain, it was difficult for him to make the instant balance adjustments that most of us realize without thinking.
The team overcame the problem by installing knee-high mirrors so the patient could see the position of his legs while walking.
– Long way ahead –
Eventually, the man was able to walk on the treadmill with only periodic looks towards his legs.
The images from the experiment show that he is walking jerkily on a slowly moving treadmill, using a metal rail for balance.
Although the effect of the device is remarkable, the man is still paralyzed once extinguished.
"It's important to understand that even with the success that this person has known during his research, he still carries out his daily activities in a wheelchair," Lee told AFP.
In 2011, electrodes implanted on the lower back of a paraplegic man allowed him to stand up and regain some movement in his legs, but the team thinks it's the first Once an implant has been used to operate a paralyzed person.
For safety reasons, the patient is currently using the device only under surveillance, but the implications of the study – namely that paralysis may not be permanent after severe spinal trauma – could to be considerable.
"Our findings, combined with previous evidence, underscore the need to re-evaluate our current understanding of spinal cord injury in order to realize the potential of emerging technologies for functional recovery, once thought to be definitively lost. "
The study was conducted jointly with the University of California at Los Angeles and was funded in part by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.
Christopher Reeve, better known for his role in the movie "Superman", remained paraplegic after a riding accident in 1995.
The man was still using a wheelchair for everyday life, but it is hoped that the study could advance the search for a cure for paralysis.
Source link
