Chip, Implanted in Brain, Helps Paralyzed Man Regain Control of Hand
By BENEDICT CAREYAPRIL 13, 2016
Ian Burkhart, who is paralyzed, playing a guitar video game as Nick Annetta, an electrical engineer at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, watched. Credit The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Battelle
Five years ago, a college freshman named Ian Burkhart dived into a wave at a beach off the Outer Banks in North Carolina and, in a freakish accident, broke his neck on the sandy floor, permanently losing the feeling in his hands and legs.
On Wednesday, doctors reported that Mr. Burkhart, 24, had regained control over his right hand and fingers, using technology that transmits his thoughts directly to his hand muscles and bypasses his spinal injury. The doctors’ study, published by the journal Nature, is the first account of limb reanimation, as it is known, in a human with profound paralysis.
Mr. Burkhart had a chip implanted in his brain two years ago. Seated in a lab with the implant connected through a computer to a sleeve on his arm, he was able to learn by repetition and continual practice to pour from a bottle, and to pick up a stirring straw and stir. He could even play a guitar video game.
“It’s crazy because I had lost sensation in my hands, and I had to watch my hand to know whether I was squeezing or extending the fingers,” Mr. Burkhart, a business student who lives in Dublin, Ohio, said in a telephone interview. His injury had left him paralyzed from the chest down; he still has some movement in his shoulders and biceps.
The new technology is not a cure for paralysis. Mr. Burkhart could only use his hand when connected to computers in the lab, and the researchers said there was much work to do before the system could provide significant mobile independence.
But the field of neural engineering is advancing quickly. Using brain implants, scientists can decode brain signals and match them to specific movements. Previously, people have learned to guide a cursor on a screen with their thoughts, primates have learned to skillfully use a robotic arm using only neural signals and scientists have shown in primates that thoughts can move arm muscles. This new study demonstrates that the bypass approach can restore critical skills to limbs no longer directly connected to the brain.
The new technology is not a cure for paralysis, and researchers said there was much work to do before the system could provide significant mobile independence. Credit The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Battelle
“It’s quite impressive what they’ve shown, this sequence of movements to pick up and pour something and pick up a stirrer — it’s an advance toward a goal we all have, to provide as much independence to these patients as possible,” said Rajesh Rao, the director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the University of Washington.
After his injury, Mr. Burkhart rehabilitated for months in Atlanta before continuing his care at Ohio State University, near his home. There, he told doctors that he would be willing to participate in experimental treatments.
“I was in the right place at the right time,” Mr. Burkhart said. “But it did mean I had to have brain surgery — surgery that I didn’t need.” His family was against it, but in time he wore them down, he said.
In 2014, a surgical team at Ohio State used brain imaging to isolate the part of his brain that controls hand movements. The area is in what is known as the motor cortex, on the left side of his brain and just above the ear. During the surgery, the team did extensive testing on the exposed brain tissue to further narrow down the location.
“The operation took three hours, and we spent an hour and half working to find the exact location,” said Dr. Ali Rezai, the surgeon and director of Ohio State’s Center for Neuromodulation. Dr. Rezai implanted a chip the size of an eraser head in the area. The chip holds 96 filamentlike “microelectrodes” that record the firing of individual neurons.
more here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/health/paralysis-limb-reanimation-brain-chip.html
Video for Context:
Transhumanism: Becoming Gods -- Official Newswatch Magazine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ82uFVGkAY
-Spyda
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