'It is an important step forward' - Hope for paralyzed humans after scientists help monkeys walk

'With the system turned on, the animals in our study had nearly normal locomotion.'

With only two small implants, scientists believe they can help paralyzed people with spinal injuries walk again - instantly.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to Telegraph, people who suffer broken backs or spinal trauma who are unable to walk or even move their legs may have hope.

An international team of scientists have created an amazing solution to bypass injured areas of the spine to allow the brain to communicate with healthy nerves in the lower extremities.

All it takes is a small implant in the brain and a small electrode implant in a healthy portion of the spine, placed somewhere beneath the injury site.

The implants connect wirelessly, leaving the procedure less invasive and safer for patients.

According to the study, which was published in Nature, mobility originates with electrical signals sent by the brain's motor cortex that travel down the lower spinal cord.

Injuries to the spine can impede or completely block the signals, leaving completely healthy limbs immobile.

By carefully decoding the signals from the motor cortex and converting them into electronic signals to fire electrodes and stimulate nerves in the spine, scientists successfully helped the macaque monkeys regain motor functionality in their lower extremities.

Scientists were able to work with two monkeys who were temporarily paralyzed in one leg to see if their technique worked.

Each monkey had lesions spanning half the spinal cord and neither was able to walk on one of their legs.

They discovered the monkeys were able to walk again instantly once the implants were embedded. The monkeys, who were on treadmills, were able to move both legs as soon as scientists turned on the implants.

Neurosurgeon Jocelyne Bloch, of the Lausanne University Hospital, stated: "For the first time, I can imagine a completely paralysed patient to be able to move their legs through this brain-spine interface."

Dr. Erwan Bezard, a neuroscientist at Bordeaux University, oversaw the experiments and shared: "The primates were able to walk immediately once the brain-spine interface was activated. No physiotherapy or training was necessary."

Dr. David Borton, assistant professor of engineering at Brown and one of the study's co-authors, explained, "With the system turned on, the animals in our study had nearly normal locomotion."

Scientists hope the breakthrough can lead to more than just helping the paralyzed walk again - they hope it will also encourage regrowth of damaged circuits.

Dr. Borton described: "There's an adage in neuroscience that circuits that fire together wire together. The idea here is that by engaging the brain and the spinal cord together, we may be abl eto enhance the growth of circuits during rehabilitation.

"That's one of the major goals of this work and a goal of this field in general."

Though the device is evidence of hope, researchers admit the signals only work one way and are unable to return to the brain, leaving a question of how much weight the legs can bear.

Regardless, British experts believe the implants are "very promising and exciting."

Professor Simone Di Giovanni, the Chair in Restorative Neuroscience at the Imperial College London, stated: "It is an important step forward in our understanding of how we could improve motor recovery in patients affected by spinal cord injury by using brain-spinal interface approaches.

"In principle this is reproducible in human patients. The issue will be how much this approach will contribute to functional recovery that impacts on the quality of life. This is still very uncertain."

Dr. Andrew Jackson, of the Movement Laboratory at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University explained the use of electronic implants to pass damaged pathways is as old as the 1970s but it wasn't until recently that science has seen "remarkable progress in this field."

He added: It is not unreasonable to speculate that we could see the first clinical demonstrations of interfaces between the brain and spinal cord by the end of the decade."

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