Three paralyzed subjects started walking, swimming and pedaling again thanks to electrodes implanted in the spinal cord. One of them is Italian, his name is Michel Roccati, and he was able to take his first steps 4 years after a motorcycle accident, which had caused a spinal injury, leaving him paralyzed. The result, published in Nature Medicine, is due to a team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Lausanne (EPFL), who developed and tested an innovative system of soft electrodes. Among the researchers also the Italian Silvestro Micera, who works between the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and Epfl.
How the device works
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Key genes identified for spinal cord regeneration
The device, implanted to the three paralyzed people during a first of its kind experimentation, consists of electrodes grafted into the spinal cord, which send electrical stimuli generated externally by a computer controlled by the patient to the muscles of the legs and trunk. Specifically, the system, developed under the guidance of researchers Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch from EPFL, is able to send electrical stimuli, which activate the contraction of muscles in a coordinated way.
After just one day of training, the three people involved in the experiment started walking again and were able to control complex movements, such as swimming and pedaling, even outside the laboratory.
Roccati: “It’s a dream come true”
“The first steps were something incredible, a dream come true”, commented the Italian involved in the experiment, Michel Roccati. “Now I am able to go up and down the stairs and aim, by spring, to be able to walk a kilometer”. The result comes after many years of research carried out by the group in this area from which the startup Onward Medical was born. The researchers’ goal is now to test this new technology on thousands of patients, to be commercialized within a few years.