{"id":839,"date":"2017-12-20T11:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/103.204.156.97\/cyber\/?p=839"},"modified":"2017-12-20T11:08:13","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T11:08:13","slug":"reversing-paralysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/?p=839","title":{"rendered":"Reversing Paralysis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-839 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/?attachment_id=844#main'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/paralysistopper-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>The French neuroscientist was watching a macaque monkey as it hunched aggressively at one end of a treadmill. His team had used a blade to slice halfway through the animal\u2019s spinal cord, paralyzing its right leg. Now Courtine wanted to prove he could get the monkey walking again. To do it, he and colleagues had installed a recording device beneath its skull, touching its motor cortex, and sutured a pad of flexible electrodes around the animal\u2019s spinal cord, below the injury. A wireless connection joined the two electronic devices.<\/p>\n<p>The result: a system that read the monkey\u2019s intention to move and then transmitted it immediately in the form of bursts of electrical stimulation to its spine. Soon enough, the monkey\u2019s right leg began to move. Extend and flex. Extend and flex. It hobbled forward. \u201cThe monkey was thinking, and then boom, it was walking,\u201d recalls an exultant Courtine, a professor with Switzerland\u2019s \u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, lab animals and a few people have controlled computer cursors or robotic arms with their thoughts, thanks to a brain implant wired to machines. Now researchers are taking a significant next step toward reversing paralysis once and for all. They are wirelessly connecting the brain-reading technology directly to electrical stimulators on the body, creating what Courtine calls a \u201cneural bypass\u201d so that people\u2019s thoughts can again move their limbs. <\/p>\n<p><iframe width='640' height='380' frameborder='1' allowfullscreen src='\/\/player.ooyala.com\/static\/v4\/candidate\/latest\/skin-plugin\/iframe.html?ec=ttZnd3OTE6LOw23SQ-anw-HpzgK1kVnk&#038;pbid=5ad1946db28d45cdb4325c91c7751266&#038;pcode=FvbGkyOtJVFD33j_Rd0xPLSo0Jiv'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, a middle-aged quadriplegic\u2014he can\u2019t move anything but his head and shoulder\u2014agreed to let doctors place two recording implants in his brain, of the same type Courtine used in the monkeys. Made of silicon, and smaller than a postage stamp, they bristle with a hundred hair-size metal probes that can \u201clisten\u201d as neurons fire off commands.<\/p>\n<p>To complete the bypass, the Case team, led by Robert Kirsch and Bolu Ajiboye, also slid more than 16 fine electrodes into the muscles of the man\u2019s arm and hand. In videos of the experiment, the volunteer can be seen slowly raising his arm with the help of a spring-loaded arm rest, and willing his hand to open and close. He even raises a cup with a straw to his lips. Without the system, he can\u2019t do any of that.<\/p>\n<p>Just try sitting on your hands for a day. That will give you an idea of the shattering consequences of spinal cord injury. You can\u2019t scratch your nose or tousle a child\u2019s hair. \u201cBut if you have this,\u201d says Courtine, reaching for a red espresso cup and raising it to his mouth with an actor\u2019s exaggerated motion, \u201cit changes your life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Case results, pending publication in a medical journal, are a part of a broader effort to use implanted electronics to restore various senses and abilities. Besides treating paralysis, scientists hope to use so-called neural prosthetics to reverse blindness with chips placed in the eye, and maybe restore memories lost to Alzheimer\u2019s disease (see \u201c10 Breakthrough Technologies 2013: Memory Implants\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>And they know it could work. Consider cochlear implants, which use a microphone to relay signals directly to the auditory nerve, routing around non-working parts of the inner ear. Videos of wide-eyed deaf children hearing their mothers for the first time go viral on the Internet every month. More than 250,000 cases of deafness have been treated.<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n\t<div class=\"wp-playlist wp-video-playlist wp-playlist-light\">\n\t\t<video controls=\"controls\" preload=\"none\" width=\"\n\t\t\t\t1148\t\"\n\t height=\"700\"\t><\/video>\n\t<div class=\"wp-playlist-next\"><\/div>\n\t<div class=\"wp-playlist-prev\"><\/div>\n\t<noscript>\n\t<ol>\n\t<li><a href='http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/monkeyfaster.gif.mp4'>monkeyfaster.gif<\/a><\/li>\t<\/ol>\n\t<\/noscript>\n\t<script type=\"application\/json\" class=\"wp-playlist-script\">{\"type\":\"video\",\"tracklist\":true,\"tracknumbers\":true,\"images\":true,\"artists\":true,\"tracks\":[{\"src\":\"http:\\\/\\\/cms.gsb.ac.in\\\/cyber\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/12\\\/monkeyfaster.gif.mp4\",\"type\":\"video\\\/mp4\",\"title\":\"monkeyfaster.gif\",\"caption\":\"\",\"description\":\"\",\"meta\":{\"length_formatted\":\"0:01\"},\"dimensions\":{\"original\":{\"width\":1024,\"height\":624},\"resized\":{\"width\":1148,\"height\":700}},\"image\":{\"src\":\"http:\\\/\\\/cms.gsb.ac.in\\\/cyber\\\/wp-includes\\\/images\\\/media\\\/video.png\",\"width\":48,\"height\":64},\"thumb\":{\"src\":\"http:\\\/\\\/cms.gsb.ac.in\\\/cyber\\\/wp-includes\\\/images\\\/media\\\/video.png\",\"width\":48,\"height\":64}}]}<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\t\n<p>In this video made by EPFL researchers, a monkey with a spinal cord injury that paralyzed its right leg is able to walk again.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s been harder to turn neural prosthetics into something that helps paralyzed people. A patient first used a brain probe to move a computer cursor across a screen back in 1998. That and several other spectacular brain-control feats haven\u2019t had any broader practical use. The technology remains too radical and too complex to get out of the lab. \u201cTwenty years of work and nothing in the clinic!\u201d Courtine exclaims, brushing his hair back. \u201cWe keep pushing the limits, but it is an important question if this entire field will ever have a product.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Courtine\u2019s laboratory is located in a vertiginous glass-and-steel building in Geneva that also houses a $100 million center that the Swiss billionaire Hansj\u00f6rg Wyss funded specifically to solve the remaining technical obstacles to neurotechnologies like the spinal cord bypass. It\u2019s hiring experts from medical-device makers and Swiss watch companies and has outfitted clean rooms where gold wires are printed onto rubbery electrodes that can stretch as our bodies do.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-2 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-2 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-2 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-2 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-2' class='gallery galleryid-839 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/?attachment_id=842#main'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/implant1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/?attachment_id=843#main'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/implant2-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>The head of the center is John Donoghue, an American who led the early development of brain implants in the U.S. (see \u201cImplanting Hope\u201d) and who moved to Geneva two years ago. He is now trying to assemble in one place the enormous technical resources and talent\u2014skilled neuroscientists, technologists, clinicians\u2014needed to create commercially viable systems.<\/p>\n<p>Among Donoghue\u2019s top priorities is a \u201cneurocomm,\u201d an ultra-compact wireless device that can collect data from the brain at Internet speed. \u201cA radio inside your head,\u201d Donoghue calls it, and \u201cthe most sophisticated brain communicator in the world.\u201d The matchbox-size prototypes are made of biocompatible titanium with a sapphire window. Courtine used an earlier, bulkier version in his monkey tests.<\/p>\n<p>As complex as they are, and as slow as progress has been, neural bypasses are worth pursuing because patients desire them, Donoghue says. \u201cAsk someone if they would like to move their own arm,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople would prefer to be restored to their everyday self. They want to be reanimated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The French neuroscientist was watching a macaque monkey as it hunched aggressively at one end of a treadmill. His team had used a blade to slice halfway through the animal\u2019s spinal cord, paralyzing its right leg. Now Courtine wanted to prove he could get the monkey walking again. To do it, he and colleagues had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cms.gsb.ac.in\/cyber\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}