Researchers recently discovered
that a person with a spinal cord injury can use a brain-computer interface to
simultaneously reanimate both motor functions and sense of touch. For the first
time in 10 years, Ian Burkhart is able to move his arm and feel what he is
touching. Burkhart, who suffered a spinal cord injury (SCI) in 2010 leaving him
paralyzed, was the first participant in a five-year study of Battelle's
NeuroLife neural bypass technology, a project Battelle has worked on in
conjunction with doctors at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
When the chip was placed on the
surface of Ian’s motor cortex in 2014, it was not known that the signals
related to object touch could be observed because of the paralysis. However,
analysis has shown that subperceptual touch following a spinal cord injury
affects Burkhart’s motor cortex even though there is essentially a block from
the nerves in his arms and their connection back to the brain. Importantly,
this subperceptual signal can be detected in the brain, rerouted via the
brain-computer interface, and sent back to a wearable haptic system to restore
the sense of touch.
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