Three paraplegic patients who could not move or feel their legs were able to walk again, thanks to an implant that electrically stimulates the spinal cord, a breakthrough that could become widespread in a few years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature. Medicine.
The technology allowed three paraplegics to “get back on their feet, walk, bike and swim,” the study said. The three patients, all men, were not only unable to move their legs, but had also lost all sensation in them after suffering accidents that affected their spinal cord.
Contained in the spinal column, the spinal cord is an extension of the brain and controls many movements that can be lost if contact with the brain is affected. In the case of the three patients, it was possible to reverse this situation.
In Lausanne, Switzerland, a team led by Swiss surgeon Jocelyne Bloch and French neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine implanted 15 electrodes, which allow electrical stimulation of various parts of the spinal cord. This was the result of ten years of treatments of this type, with the aim of making it a therapy that would change the lives of many people.
The idea of ​​sending an electrical current to regain lost movement dates back decades and was first put to use in 2011, when a paraplegic was able to stand up again. This time, the operated patients were able to take their first steps on a laboratory treadmill almost immediately, although the movement is not comparable to a normal walk. “One should not imagine an immediate miracle, it allows us to train these activities afterwards”, explained Courtine at a press conference.
After five months of rehabilitation, the progress was considerable and one of the patients was able to walk almost a kilometer without interruption.
a few hours a day
To achieve these advances, the researchers dramatically improved the technology used in previous experiments, which were based on preexisting electrical stimulation tools. But these devices were designed with a different purpose: to reduce pain rather than to stimulate movement, a much more complex goal, especially since humans have spinal cords with different characteristics.
This time, “the electrodes are longer and larger than previously used, which allows more muscles to be accessed,” explained Jocelyne Block. Another important advance is that, thanks to software that uses artificial intelligence, the electrical impulses are much more precise and correspond better with each movement, instead of being an indiscriminate flow of current.
Jocelyne hopes that, in the coming years, these advances can reach a greater number of people. The technology must undergo much broader clinical trials, coordinated by the Dutch startup Onward, which aims to facilitate its use with a phone, for example.
One of the limitations of the system is that when the electrical stimulus is stopped, it has no lasting effect. And the same cannot be maintained permanently, as it would exhaust the patient’s organism.
Even so, recovering a little movement daily is already a lot, expressed one of the patients, Michel Roccati, who had the electrodes implanted in 2020, three years after a motorcycle accident. “I use it every day, for a few hours. At work, at home, for many things,” he commented.
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