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Spinal-cord injury

Neural interfaces take another step forward

Nature volume 539, pages 177–178 (2016)Cite this article

Subjects

Two monkeys subjected to a spinal-cord injury that paralysed one leg have regained the ability to walk, thanks to technology that re-establishes communication between the brain and spinal cord. See Letter p.284

Each time we decide to move, electrical signals cascade from the brain down the spinal cord to instruct our muscles to contract. Damage to the pathways that relay these messages, for example owing to a spinal-cord injury, can result in paralysis, for which there is currently no cure. The nerves of the spinal cord do not heal spontaneously after injury, and efforts to repair them with pharmacological and regenerative techniques have had only limited success. On page 284, Capogrosso et al.1 report that an alternative approach involving a wireless electronic connection between the brain and spinal cord restored movement in two monkeys that were each paralysed in one leg as a result of a spinal-cord injury.

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Figure 1: Communication bypass.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andrew Jackson is at the Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE2 4HH, UK.,

    Andrew Jackson

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  1. Andrew Jackson
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Correspondence to Andrew Jackson.

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Jackson, A. Neural interfaces take another step forward. Nature 539, 177–178 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/539177a

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