On 24 May, a group of neuroscientists from the NeuroX Institute, School of Life Sciences of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Geneva, Switzerland, have published a scientific article titled “Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface” in Nature, a leading international journal where the research community shares their findings. In their article, the team explains how their technology was able to help a participant of their study to regain his ability to walk.
The team working at the NeuroX Institute successfully restored the communication between the brain and spinal cord of the participant, 40 years old Gert-Jan Oskam, with a digital bridge. Oskam, who suffers from chronic tetraplegia since 2011 due to a cycling accident, is now capable of standing and walking naturally in community settings. The technology who enabled this great achievement is a brain–spine interface (BSI) which consists of fully implanted recording and stimulation systems that establish a direct link between cortical signals and the analogue modulation of epidural electrical stimulation targeting the spinal cord regions involved in the production of walking.
Even more interesting is that after one year of following the use of their BSI in the study’s participant, the team observed that Oskam regained the ability to walk with crutches overground even when the BSI was switched off. This proves that the neurorehabilitation supported by the BSI improved neurological recovery and that the digital bridge can establish a framework to restore natural control of movement after paralysis.
You can read more about the research findings and the testimonies of the NeuroX Institute’s team and Gert-Jan Oskam in this news article by The Guardian.
Support received from the EIC’s Pathfinder and Transition funding programmes
The EIC supports the research of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne that directly contributed to this amazing scientific innovation through the EIC Pathfinder NEMO BMI project and the EIC Transition ReverseParalysis project, in which the university is a partner.
The NEMO BMI project aims to address the necessity for supervised training of brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) through the development of an assistance-free system. For this, researchers will simplify the design of BMIs by employing technological breakthroughs and miniaturised solutions. The generated easy-to-use device is expected to improve the quality of life for a substantial number of people who suffer from spinal cord injury.
The EU-funded ReverseParalysis project aims to develop two fully implantable brain−spine interfaces (BSIs) that will restore lower- and upper-limb movement after spinal cord injury (SCI). The project will combine a brain implant to decode motor intents from cortical activity, with an implantable pulse generator for real-time control of spinal cord stimulation with electrode arrays designed to leverage movement restoration.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.