Paralyzed man walks naturally, thanks to wireless bridge between brain and spine

Paralyzed man walks naturally, thanks to wireless bridge between brain and spine(science.org)

44 points by semihsalihoglu 3 years ago | 5 comments

About 15 years ago I had seen a paralyzed man control mouse and computer interfaces (was research from Brown university). This is a new step where the translated brain signals are controlling the spine directly! This is truly amazing, inspiring, and practical (and don't forget to watch the short video!)

chromoblob 3 years ago |

> These signals travel wirelessly to a headset and then to a laptop in a backpack worn by Oskam, where an algorithm decodes his intended movement.

So it's probably not real-time (how is the laptop's platform implemented?). Then it is a wonder that this works at all.

semihsalihoglu 3 years ago | |

I remember the Brown prof's demo video, which was about a paralyzed person drawing a circle on the screen. The way it was implemented was by capturing and learning the signals the brain sends (but unable to send to the spine of course) when the person is "thinking of" or "imagining" moving the cursor to the left and right, etc. And then translating those signals to cursor moves. This video explains a similar approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oka8hqsOzg

vaidhy 3 years ago |

This is fucking amazing!!! Can I get an implant that will exercise my muscles automatically while I can hooked up to a machine?

_yb2s 3 years ago | |

Yes, my new startup Sever offers a service that permanently cuts your spinal coord so you can work all day at a virtual desk using an Apple Vision Pro, while your body works out all day in the gym- completely undetectable to you.

Of course you will need to now pay hourly API access fees to use your new FitBody(tm) and sign over the rights to let us rent your physical body to 3rd party virtual users for any hours you don’t pay for. As the initial “donor” you will get priority access when booking time on “your” body.