We all know that the difficulty walking many of us with multiple sclerosis (MS) can be caused by lesions that damage the nerves along the spinal cord. What if an electronic bridge could be built to carry nerve impulses over these damaged areas? This concept is being explored as a way to help people who have been paralyzed by spinal cord injury. Can it also apply to people with MS?
Article published on May 24 in Nature reports on how scientists in Switzerland created a “digital bridge” to allow a man to walk again after a 2011 motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. Not only that, according to history in New York Times, a year after receiving the brain and spinal implants that created the bridge, the man can stand, get in and out of a car and walk up a steep ramp with the help of a walker. He also shows signs that his central nervous system is recovering, walking with crutches even when the implants are off.
Artificial intelligence and radio signals on the bridge
The system used to achieve this improvement involves recording brain activity and then using these signals to stimulate the spinal cord. To achieve this, wireless implants were placed in the patient’s skull and spine. An artificial intelligence (AI) thought decoder detects walking desires that are generated in specific parts of the patient’s brain and connects them to the muscles needed for that walking. A radio signal is sent between the implants to stimulate these muscles to move. These signals occur every 300 milliseconds.
“We captured the thoughts of Gert-Jan (Gert-Jan Oskam, the patient) and translated these thoughts into spinal cord stimulation to restore voluntary movement,” Grégoire Courtin, a spinal cord specialist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, who helped conduct the research, said The times.
But this feat is not easy to accomplish. Treatment required multiple surgeries and hours of physical therapy. As shown in the study, the patient must wear a headset and a backpack device that carries radios, transmitters and an AI processor.
Will it work for someone with MS?
Could this method someday help someone with MS walk? That’s hard to say. The Swiss researchers say their system won’t fix all spinal cord paralysis, but as a non-scientist I have to wonder why a similar device can’t be developed to do so. Only a little more than three years ago, scientists from Duke University used rats to experiment with the transmission of sensory signals between the brain and spinal cord. Imagine what could happen in this area in four or five years.
Perhaps MS presents too many damaged areas of the spinal cord to cover, and I’m sure other obstacles will have to be overcome. A robot-like exoskeleton is currently being used for gait training with some MS patients, but it is an external device.
It would be nice to devote more time and money to MS research to create technology like this digital bridge. I don’t know if it happens but please let me know if it does. I would like to write about it.
You are invited to visit my personal blog at www.themswire.com.
Note: Multiple Sclerosis News Today is only a news and information website about the disease. Does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have about a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Multiple Sclerosis News Today or its parent company, BioNews, and are intended to stimulate discussion on issues related to multiple sclerosis.