Australian researchers have created a “bionic spinal cord” they said Tuesday could give paralyzed people hope of walking again through the power of thought, without resorting to open brain surgery.
The system would use a device the size of a paperclip implanted in a blood vessel next to the brain.
An experimental treatment uses electricity to help people suffering from paralysis stand up and even walk! Could this technique provide a cure for some victims? Tara explains how this therapy works.





“Our vision, through this device, is to return function and mobility to patients with complete paralysis by recording brain activity and converting the acquired signals into electrical commands, which in turn would lead to movement of the limbs through a mobility assist device like an exoskeleton,” he said in a statement.
“In essence this a bionic spinal cord.”
The research, which will see the first in-human trial at The Royal Melbourne Hospital in 2017, was published Tuesday in Nature Biotechnology. It shows the device could record high-quality signals emitted from the brain’s motor cortex, without the need for open brain surgery, based on research using sheep.





Speaking to AFP, Oxley said that all the other brain-machine interface technologies had involved inserting an electrode directly into the brain.
He said the aim was for the new device to work much like a cardiac pacemaker, which is typically inserted without open-heart surgery. “The cardiac pacemaker is essentially the classic bionic device — it goes inside a vein, it sits next to the heart and it works for a lifetime,” Oxley said.
“And we are essentially trying to do the exact same thing for the brain. Go up a vein, leave it there, and have a lifetime of recordings coming out of it.”
It is hoped that the research, which involved 39 scientists from the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the University of Melbourne and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, could also be used to treat epilepsy, depression and Parkinsons.