A research group of the Swiss Federal Technical University of Lausanne (EPFL) presents the next generation of its system, which at least partially runs backwards. The experts around Jocelyne Bloch and Grégoire Courtine implanted their three patients a film in the spinal cord, which receives electrical signals from a computer and forwards them to the spinal cord nerves. In this way, leg and fuselage muscles are controlled in the rhythm of the movement.
According to the technical contribution in »Nature Medicine«, the experimental participants were able to take the first steps on the first day after the implant was activated. Due to patient training, the skills of the three participants increased significantly. Michel Roccati, an Italian who was paraplegic after a motorcycle accident, can now run 500 meters with a rollator after months of training and climb up and down stairs. The implant should also step into the pedals and swim with the help of the implant.
The so-called electrode array consists of a foil a good seven centimeters long and almost one and a half centimeters wide, on which 16 small electrodes are arranged. The implant and the control commands to the muscles must be adapted to the individual circumstances of the test person.
In a press release, the EPF describes the process: First, users must select the desired movement program on a tablet computer and send them to a computer implanted in the abdomen. Then the test subjects take up their walking aid, for example a walker and press the button on the right handle; At the same time, focus on wanting to take a step with your left leg. "As by ghost hand", the leg lifts and falls a few centimeters forward to the ground, writes the EPFL. Then follows the same procedure with the button on the left.
In 2018, the researchers demonstrated the basic feasibility of their method. At that time, however, they were still testing patients who had retained residual mobility of their lower limbs.
The latest version of the technology is also not suitable for every patient and patient, says Winfried Mayr from the Medical University of Vienna at the request of the Science Media Center. It could not be emphasized that very specific forms of the injury must be given in order to get on in this way, and unfortunately they are not given by many affected people. "
