AFP
A paraplegic man walks again thanks to the combination of two technologies
A paraplegic returned to walking naturally thanks to the innovative combination of two technologies that allowed communication between the brain and the spinal cord to be restored. “I have regained my freedom,” said the Dutchman Gert-Jan ( he did not want to give his last name), who benefited from this technological innovation in a Swiss hospital in Lausanne. Thanks to it, this 40-year-old patient moves one foot behind the other again for the first time since he suffered a few ten years old a spinal cord injury, at the level of the cervical vertebrae, due to a bicycle accident. “At first I was unable to put one foot in front of the other,” explained the Swiss surgeon Jocelyne Bloch, a professor at the University Hospital Center de Vaud, in Lausanne, during the presentation of a study published this Wednesday in the prestigious journal Nature. Before him, other paraplegics had already managed to walk thanks to technological instruments, but in his case it is the first time that he has controlled thanks to to his brain the movement of his legs and the rhythm of his steps. This feat was made possible thanks to the combination of two technologies implanted in the brain and in the spinal cord, explains Guillaume Charvet, a researcher at the Commissariat for Energy, to AFP. Atomic (CEA), a major French laboratory for scientific and industrial research.- Digital Bridge -Two laboratories, one French and one Swiss, are behind this scientific breakthrough, achieved after ten years of joint research. Gert-Jan is electrodes, developed by the CEA, were implanted in the area of the brain that is responsible for leg movement. This device is used to decode the electronic signals from the brain when thinking about walking and is also connected to a field of electrodes located in the area of the spinal cord that is used to control the movement of the legs. Thanks to algorithms that work from artificial intelligence, the patient’s movement intentions are decoded in real time. And then their wishes are converted into a sequence of electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, which is responsible for activating the muscles of the legs to move. The data between the technology integrated in the brain and that of the spinal cord is transmitted thanks to a portable system that can be carried in a backpack or in a walker. Until now, paraplegics had only been able to walk again thanks to the implantation of an electronic stimulation system in the spinal cord. But they could not control their movements naturally. In the case of the Dutch patient, the digital bridge created between the brain and the spinal cord not only allows him to walk, but also to voluntarily control his movements and their amplitude.- “Long journey” – “It’s very different from what we’ve seen so far,” says French neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine, a professor at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne. “Previous patients were making a great effort, now he can do it just thinking that he wants to take a step,” he adds. Gert-Jan, who underwent surgery twice to have implants placed, acknowledges having gone through “a long journey ” to stand up again and walk for several minutes at a time. Another significant advance was that, after six months of training, he seems to have recovered some of his sensory and motor skills even when the system is deactivated.” These results suggest that the Establishing a link between the brain and the spinal cord favors a reorganization of the neural circuits in the area of the lesion,” says Charvet. Will this innovative technology soon be able to be used on a large scale? “We will still need many years of research,” acknowledges this CEA scientist. His teams will soon start a trial to use it in paraplegics of arms and hands and have also planned to apply it to victims of cerebrovascular accidents.ito / cel / fmp / gvy / eb/mb
