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Paralysed man walks again with brain-controlled exoskeleton
PARIS, Oct 4, 2019 (BSSAFP) – A French man paralysed in a night club
accident can walk again thanks to a brain-controlled exoskeleton in what
scientists say is a breakthrough providing hope to tetraplegics seeking to
regain movement.
The patient trained for months, harnessing his brain signals to control a
computer-simulated avatar to perform basic movements before using the robot
device to walk.
Doctors who conducted the trial cautioned that the device is years away
from being publicly available but stressed that it had “the potential to
improve patients’ quality of life and autonomy”.
The man involved, identified only as Thibault, a 28-year-old from Lyon,
said the technology had given him a new lease of life. Four years ago that
life changed forever when he fell 12 metres (40 feet) from a balcony while on
a night out, severing his spinal chord and leaving him paralysed from the
shoulders down.
“When you’re in my position, when you can’t do anything with your body… I
wanted to do something with my brain,” Thibault told AFP on Thursday.
Training on a video-game avatar system for months to acquire the skills
needed to operate the exoskeleton, he said he had to “relearn” natural
movements from scratch.
“I can’t go home tomorrow in my exoskeleton, but I’ve got to a point where
I can walk. I walk when I want and I stop when I want.”
Cervical spinal cord injury leaves around 20 percent of patients paralysed
in all four limbs and is the most severe injury of its kind.
“The brain is still capable of generating commands that would normally move
the arms and legs, there’s just nothing to carry them out,” said Alim-Louis
Benabid, professor emeritus at Grenoble and lead author of the study
published Friday in The Lancet Neurology.
A team of experts from the Hospital of Grenoble Alpes, biomedical firm
Cinatech and the CEA research centre started by implanting two recording
devices either side of Thibault’s head, between the brain and the skin.
These read his sensorimotor cortex — the area that controls motor
function.
Each decoder transmits the brain signals which are then translated by an
algorithm into the movements the patient has thought about. It is this system
that sends physical commands that the exoskeleton executes.
Thibault used the avatar and video game to think about performing basic
physical tasks such as walking, and reaching out to touch objects.
Using the avatar, video game and exoskeleton combined, he was able to cover
the length of one and a half football pitches over the course of many
sessions.
– ‘Repaired not augmented man’ –
Several previous studies have used implants to stimulate muscles in
patients’ own bodies, but the Grenoble study is the first to use brain
signals to control a robot exoskeleton.
Experts involved in the research say it could potentially lead to brain-
controlled wheelchairs for paralysed patients.
“This isn’t about turning man into machine but about responding to a
medical problem,” said Benabid.
“We’re talking about ‘repaired man’, not ‘augmented man’.
In a comment piece on the study, Tom Shakespeare from the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the exoskeleton system was “a long way
from usable clinical possibility”.
But Thibault said the trial offered a “message of hope to people like me”.
“This is possible, even with our handicap.”
BSS/AFP/SSS/1631 hrs