A man may regain the ability to move one of his arms, paralyzed after being injured in a car accident, thanks to a pioneering nerve transplant from his partially amputated leg.

Surgeons at the City of Turin Hospital (CTO) transplanted part of the 55-year-old man’s sciatic nerve into the brachial plexus, the network of nerves that connect the spine to the shoulder, arm and hand. “This is the first time that someone has transferred the sciatic nerve to the brachial plexus,” said Paolo Titolo, one of the surgeons, in an interview with Reuters.

Marcello Gavilio, a 55-year-old healthcare worker, was hit by a motorbike five months ago while riding his motorbike to work. Doctors were forced to amputate part of his left leg and, due to severe injuries to the brachial plexus, paralyzed his arms.

Because he no longer needed the portion of the sciatic nerve that controlled his left leg, doctors thought they could transfer it to his shoulder to possibly restore movement in one of his arms. The operation took place on December 21. Gavilio will need about 5 months of post-operative care before it can be seen if the experiment was successful. At the moment, he can’t move his arms at all.

Nerve transfer is nothing new, but a nerve that controls a leg has never been transplanted into a body part that controls an arm. “We think it’s a groundbreaking operation because, if it works, it means that the plasticity of the brain is such that it can control other parts of the body, and it also opens up a new field of neuroscience research,” Titolo said.

The goal is to partially restore function in one hand, which can then help the other hand do various things, he added.

This procedure was the result of a four-year study published in the medical journal Injury. Gavilio, the patient, said he didn’t think at all about the groundbreaking side of the operation, just that he should take the opportunity that presented itself. “They thought I’d rely on a team of really good doctors to be able to move my arm a little bit again,” he said.