Robotic Brain Training Relieves Paralysis in Duke Study

Eight people who spent years paralyzed from spinal cord injuries have regained partial control of their lower limbs as well as some sensation following work with brain-controlled robotics. Five of the participants had been paralyzed for at least five years and two had been paralyzed for more than ten.

It took seven months of training before most of the subjects saw any changes. After a year, four patients’ sensation and muscle control changed significantly enough that doctors upgraded their diagnoses from complete to partial paralysis.

According to Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D., who led the study, brain-machine systems establish direct communication between the brain and computers or prosthetics, such as robotic limbs. According to the report, published by Duke Today, Nicolelis has worked for 20 years to build systems that record hundreds of simultaneous signals from neurons in the brain. His goal is to extract motor commands from those signals and translate them into movement.

“What we’re showing is that patients who used a brain-machine interface for a long period of time experienced improvements in motor behavior, tactile sensations and visceral functions below the level of the spinal cord injury, ” he said. “Until now, nobody has seen recovery of these functions in a patient so many years after being diagnosed with complete paralysis.”

Nicolelis and colleagues believe with weekly training, the rehab patients re-engaged spinal cord nerves that survived the traumatic incident that paralyzed their lower limbs in the first place.

One of the subjects was a 32-year-old woman who had been paralyzed for 13 years. The researchers reported that early in training, she was unable to stand using braces, but over the course of the study, she walked using a walker, braces and a therapist’s help. At 13 months, she was able to move her legs voluntarily while her body weight was supported in a harness.

“Until now, nobody has seen recovery of these functions in a patient so many years after being diagnosed with complete paralysis, ” Nicolelis said. “We couldn’t have predicted this surprising clinical outcome when we began the project.”