On November 1st, a breakthrough treatment enabled paralyzed patients to walk again, reactivated neural connections, and even brought hope to people who had experienced many years after the accident.
The team, including neurosurgeons and engineers, uses directional electrical impulses to achieve this effect, triggering individual muscle units in sequence, just like the signals from the brain. These pulses are produced by implants placed on the spine that align with the areas that control the lower body muscles. So far, the results are very promising.
Gregoire Kurtina, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, told AFP that this was the result of "a decade of serious research." Previous experiments used so-called continuous electrical stimulation of the spine, which worked well for rodents but not so significantly in humans.
However, after a few months of target pulse training, "our three participants were able to activate their previously muscles without electrical stimulation," Curtina said. “This result is completely unexpected,†he added in a video in Nature. “They can even walk a few steps on the ground without any support. For me, this recovery is amazing.â€
Reconnecting neural pathways
The video of the study clearly shows the difference between the target stimulus and the continuous pulse. Under target stimulation, the patient walks in an almost normal way. In contrast, continuous pulses produce more intense movements, and his feet are dragged and out of balance.
Targeted pulses, coupled with extensive physical therapy planning, clearly reactivate the neural connections that are dormant when the patient is injured. In 2010, 28-year-old David Miz was completely paralyzed in an accident in his left leg, but after the five-month project, he could walk with the walker for two hours by electric stimulation, or himself. Walk within a short distance.
Stimulation begins with a pulse of muscle to cause the patient to start exercising, such as taking a step. The sensor on the foot detects this action as the initial phase of a step and sends an additional target pulse to trigger the muscle movement required to complete the step, then repeat the action.
At the same time, the patient will consider moving these muscles and starting to walk. Since the neurons in the brain are almost exactly the same time as the electrical impulses stimulate the muscles, this technique seems to eventually "reconnect" the brain and muscles. Even without electrical stimulation, the patient can control muscle movement.
Have a long way to go
Joslin Bloch, a neurosurgeon at the University Hospital of Lausanne, helped lead the study. “It’s unbelievable to see all these patients move their legs without electrical stimulation,†he said. In an independent assessment. Chet Moritz, an associate professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington, praised the work. He wrote: "The field of spinal cord injury will take a big step in treatment until recently considered to be incurable." However, Curtina warned that "adjustment expectations are still very important", these three patients Still relying mainly on wheelchairs.
The study also focused on patients who were still conscious in the lower body. Looking ahead, Curtina said she hopes to see this technology combined with biotherapies involving nerve repair. He and Bloch founded a startup that will improve treatment and test patients shortly after spinal cord injury, which may be more successful. "There is still a lot of work to do to change the lives of these people," Curtina said.
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