Curing Paralysis

Caused by so many different reasons, paralysis affects millions of people worldwide. In fact 5.6 million Americans have some form of paralysis making it a huge problem. There has always been a strive to fix this issue but it has been impossible and still has next to zero cures but recently, a French neuroscientist has took on the challenge and has passed a milestone in the field of paralyzation.

Brain Reader chip in Brain concept sketch

The neuroscientist along with his colleagues were able to enable a paralyzed monkey to walk again. The group of scientists slit the monkey's spinal cord causing it’s right leg to be paralyzed. The reason for this paralyzation is that the chain neurons that pass the signals from the brain to the leg have been broken apart. The neuroscientist reconnected the neurons with a device beneath its skull, touching its motor cortex, and attached a pad of flexible electrodes around the animal’s spinal cord, below the injury. A wireless connection joins the two pieces together reviving the connection between the brain and leg electronically. After the implement the money was able to use the left leg again.

Sadly, it is tougher to turn neural prosthetics into something that can help people today. A patient first used a brain probe to move a computer cursor across a screen back in 1998. This rare finding along with other non-practical mind controlled thing are the only scarce uses of brain probes. The brain is too complex for technologies to keep up with it making it tough to get this innovation out of the lab.

French neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine holds the two pieced technology

The brain-reading chip of the two part technology

Flexible electrodes stimulating the spinal cord

Flexible electrodes stimulating the spinal cord