Paralyzed Man Regains Hand Function After Breakthrough Nerve Rewiring Procedure

An anonymous reader writes "A 71-year-old man who became paralyzed from the waist down and lost all use of both hands in a 2008 car accident has regained motor function in his fingers after doctors rewired his nerves to bypass the damaged ones in a pioneering surgical procedure, according to a case study published on Tuesday."

Comments

Fact is becoming better than fiction

[jcrb]

Between this, the latest reports of restoring sigh with implantable photo voltaic chips and engineered nano particle drug delivery, medical science fiction is running out of subjects that are still fiction. Kurzweil's Singularity is looking more and more likely every day.

In the words of Glenn Reynolds ...... FASTER, PLEASE!!

No dexterity in the fingers

[cortex]

Pretty amazing surgery, but watching the videos shows limited restoration of function. The key is getting the transplanted/regenerating nerves to make the proper connections. The surgery is not going to re-wire the incredible number of connections made during development. Neural prostheses currently offer better dexterity and restoration of function than the nerve transplant. However, it is likely only a matter of time (maybe sever decades) before the neural re-wiring problem is solved.

Re:No dexterity in the fingers

[crash123]

You have to remember that this operation probably caused nerve damage too and nerves take a ridiculously long time to heal (about 6mm per week) also the dude hasn't used his hand in four years so he has probably just forgotten how to use it too. He will have a lot of rehab ahead of him i imagine.

Qaelia sensory mapping

[Anonymous Coward]

"The brain has to be trained to think, 'OK, I used to bend my elbow with this nerve, and now I use it to pinch' [...] it's more of a mental game that patients have to play with themselves."

I love imagining just how this would feel. Does the wiring ever become automatic and abstract in the same way that we normally come to experience motor movements(not thinking about pulling this muscle, relaxing that one, but just that we want to move our leg)? Or will he for the rest of his life feel like he is trying to move a specific forearm muscle group when he scratches his head?

Re:Qaelia sensory mapping

[durrr]

It becomes abstract and automated. Sortof like how your brain can flip your vision if you wear inverting glasses for prolonged timeperiods.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.

[Will Steinhelm]

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

I had these nerve rewirings in 1998 too...

[antdude]

Reposted and updated from http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8937&cid=613380 ...

When I had my cranial surgery (due to my locked jaw -- had to open my jaw -- it was so bad that I couldn't stick my tongue out), the doctors had to break some nerves to fix this (from my neck and right side of my head near the ear area).

After the complex surgery, the right side of my face were unresponsive (i.e. couldn't move and feel). That included my right eye where I couldn't move my eye lids (not even close fully).

After about two months, I went to another surgery to fix these damaged facial nerves. The doctors fixed this by connecting working nerves to the damaged ones. Basically, they were rerouting these signals as if you were rerouting a network.

Some of my broken nerves are currently recovered, but it will take years to recovered almost fully (not 100%).

You can read more old details from http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/surgery/surgery.html ...

--

5/15/2012: Nope, they never recovered fully. I still can't close my right eye lid fully and can feel a little more, but still can't move fully. The feelings still funky in other areas on my head/face/neck. Heh!

I wonder how much has improved from 1998 if I had that nerve reconstruction in 2010s.

Re:I'm not a doctor

[Razgorov Prikazka]

A new procedure is a (usually) physical procedure on 1 single person who is consenting. If it goes wrong only 1 person is harmed (or not improving at least)
A new drug is something (bio)chemical of which the long term implications are more difficult to oversee. Aspirin is with us now since 1860 or so and still we find out new benefits and drawbacks of it. Further still, it is to be given as a treatment to a much larger set of individuals, so the potential harm done is therefore greater and thus needs more and rigorous testing before it can be deployed.
So I think (although I am not at all a medic) that therefore the consent of only the patient is enough if the applicable law's and Hipocratic oath is not broken in such matters.