Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface
nature.com
nature.com
One really interesting thing they’ve reported about this is that it requires a head set to connect the brain implants to the spine electrodes, but after a while the patient was able to walk using a stroller without the headset because the body regrew nerve tissue and Reenabled some connection to the brain.
My suspicion (tho I'd love to be educated on this) is that the reference patient did not have a truly 'complete' spinal cord injury, but rather one where there were at least some nervecells remaining/bruised. If there was a complete section of nerve wiring missing, I don't see how re-growth could occur (but perhaps there's some stem-cell wizardry that can help with that???). Anyway, it wouldn't matter much; if these devices become small and convenient enough, it's not much burden to wear them forever.
This is mentioned in the article at the start of the Discussion section:
> The validation of this digital bridge was restricted to a single individual with severe but partial damage of the spinal cord, and it therefore remains unclear whether the BSI will be applicable to other injury locations and severities. However, several observations suggest that this approach will be applicable to a broad population of individuals with paralysis.
The authors likewise anticipate that there won't be any technical hurdles in miniaturizing the technology and making it self-calibrating.
Patients with “complete” spinal cord injury have been successfully treated as well:
https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-02-08/three-par...
While AI works like our brains is patently false it might just be analogous enough to not matter in the end if the details are the same to get similar emergent behavior.
"Please give us a neural lace!"
Says no one... yet. But the priming is underway!
Any research that does not involve repairing the physical damage to the spinal cord itself is a distraction. Anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the physiology involved or is being deliberately disingenuous.
It's hard to think of an apt analogy, but perhaps consider a patient who walks into a doctor's office with a broken arm. Instead of setting the break and applying a cast, the doctor offers them a referral to a psychologist to help them adjust to life with a broken arm.
Apart from the person in their study who can now walk, that had the spinal injury (with the use of a crawler)...
In relation to your second point, you are aware regenereative science and this implant approach can progress in parallel? This offers something tangible, plus with more refining can be rolled out en masse. What regenerative science can be applied now that would give such a quality of life improvement?
I'm not claiming that regenerative treatments and implants can't progress in parallel. I'm simply claiming implants are a dead-end and are distracting resources away from regenerative research.
Do you have data to show funding gets moved away from regenerative research?
Dentures? Distraction.
Prosthetic arms and legs? Distraction. Why aren't we regrowing limbs yet? Lizards can do it. Follow the money.
> Moreover, neurorehabilitation supported by the BSI improved neurological recovery. The participant regained the ability to walk with crutches overground even when the BSI was switched off. This digital bridge establishes a framework to restore natural control of movement after paralysis.
So, not only did the brain–spine interface ("BSI") itself allow the patent to walk when they couldn't before (which strikes me as an absolute win, even if you call it a distraction) but it also facilitated neurological recovery over the longer term.
I am more interested in how well was the patient able to recover, fully or with care? And is there a possibility that the device can be removed entirely?
People who don't actually live with or understand spinal cord injury often fall into the trap of thinking that "if we can just make their legs move, then they're fixed!" Completely ignoring that somatosensation (sensory feedback) is probably 2/3 or more of the signal and implants can't communicate that at all. It's difficult for many able-bodied people to understand that spinal cord injuries are not the same as needing glasses (to address another comment). Not the same ballpark, not even the same sport.
One must ask the question of what the goal of the research is? Is the goal to restore spinal cord function or is the goal to advance BMI technology? When your funding source and research institution are committed to a particular path, the "goal" starts to take whatever shape is necessary to align with the former two.
I suppose it's only fair for me to consider that perhaps the goal is better BMI's instead of restoring spinal cord function. To which I would have to applaud the effort. However, I have it on good authority that given the option, those suffering from spinal cord injuries would rather see more research going toward solving the problem and not the symptom.
But if that's the case why are you talking like you're talking in your comment above?
> Any research that does not involve repairing the physical damage to the spinal cord itself is a distraction.
People think you're trolling because this is how trolling sounds.
> please at least consider that perhaps I'm not the one who's missing something, that perhaps I have decades of experience following the research and its results
The woe-is-me passive-aggression isn't helping your cause, dude. Share what you know, nicely, even if you're disagreeing with something, and people won't jump on you.
Has he been not-nice?
The only leftover arguments are then "people prefer more complete solutions", but is a little unbelievable that these same people would not prefer any solution at all over no solution. And "I have decades of experience" is supposed to somehow stifle the fact that some people do not agree with you. An argument from background is just not very compelling, you do not have one based on logic and in terms of feelings you are so antagonistic the primary response is to not engage with your argument positively.
If you truly want to change someone's mind, I'd really start with toning down the antagonism. Or if you must be, at least provide a more compelling logical argument based on some actual data.
Many of the previous studies also claimed similar results - or at least pop-media sensationalised already generously interpreted results to make it seem so. But if they were all so successful, why are they not routinely used? Given how important mobility is to quality of life and how costly its impairment is, why is it that of the dozens, even hundreds of "successful" studies, most people affected by SCI see no benefit? I think we have to at least consider the possibility that these particular treatments are not as successful or as effective as the studies claim at providing net quality of life improvement. And I think this also addresses your argument that any solution is better than no solution, which presupposes that what we're looking at is in fact a solution and not just another "successful" study that gets shelved because of its inability to translate into a treatment that provides a net quality of life improvement.
Just a handful of previous studies for reference:
1. Epidural Stimulation (dates back to 2002): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8374568/
2. Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (dates back to 1997): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4589923/
3. Functional electrical stimulation (dates back prior to 2004): https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Functional_electrical_stimula...
4. Spinal Cord Neuromodulation (dates back prior to 2007): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17387353/
5. Magnetic Spinal Cord Stimulation (dates back to at least 2018): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-30232-z