Electrodes help paralyzed man take steps [video]
A 25-year-old paraplegic man was able to stand and step on a treadmill voluntarily with assistance from a stimulating electrode array. The patient, Rob Summers (pictured above before the accident), is a former athlete who was completely paralyzed below the chest in a hit-and-run accident in July 2006.
After implantation with the device, Summers could push himself into a standing position and bear weight on his own. He can now remain standing, and bearing weight, for 20 minutes at a time. He also can voluntarily move his toes, ankles, knees, and hips on command. Summers has no voluntary control over his limbs when the stimulation is turned off.
The scientists aren’t yet fully sure how these functions were regained—or, indeed, how the control of voluntary function was returned through the procedure. “Somehow, stimulation by the electrodes may have reactivated connections that were dormant or stimulated the growth of new connections,” says Joel Burdick, a professor of mechanical engineering and bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology.
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: University of Louisville
