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Fighting Paralysis With Electricity
the_newsbeagle writes "In spinal cord injuries, the brain's commands can't reach the lower body — so in a ground-breaking experiment at the University of Louisville, researchers are providing artificial commands via electrodes implanted in the spine. The first paralyzed people to try out the tech have already been able to stand on their own, and have regained some bowel and sexual function. A video that accompanies the article also shows paralyzed rats that were able to walk again with this kind of electrical stimulation."
really
When I use my stun gun it causes temporary paralysis most of the time. But if I use it on some drunk who's passed out it seems to encourage movement.
Science is confusing and electricity is magic.
In crude ways we've been able to do this for decades. I've seen video a guy who was unable to move from the chest down climb stairs using his own legs. It was from back in the 80's. Wasn't capable of any kind of fine motor control and it would be easy to knock him over, but between the braces and the electrodes that where implanted it worked. I guess they are able to move up the circuit to the spine and implant electrodes there? So? How's this help very much?
Now if you can transfer signals from above the damaged spine to below, THAT would be something to see.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
We used to do this with 9V batteries in High School Biology. Of course we used dead frogs but it was the same thing. ...
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I'm certainly glad I can urinate easily and stand on my right leg without electrodes.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
The first paralyzed people to try out the tech have already been able to stand on their own, and have regained some bowel and sexual function.
Gives new meaning to the phrase "getting turned on".
http://xkcd.com/644/
I recall when I was in high school watching video of people with similar setups, where electrodes were going to the muscles or spine, and little jolts would make the legs move. It was very jerky and reportedly very draining to the person (since every motion was a sudden thrust).
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
"In spinal cord injuries, the brain's commands can't reach the lower body — so in a ground-breaking experiment at the University of Louisville, researchers are providing artificial commands via electrodes implanted in the spine. The first paralyzed people to try out the tech have already been able to stand on their own, and have regained some bowel and sexual function.
I pray that somewhere out there, a poor paralyzed Japanese girl is finally getting this technology.
You know, just so that after it's implanted, she can exclaim, "Onii-chan, my hips are moving on their own!"
To the tip of my penis.
Kind of off-topic but I love seeing stuff like this hit the news. I do IT work at Medtronic. Nothing related to the devices but rather supporting the software that the engineers, scientists, physicians, designers and factory workers use to make these devices. Its an interesting feeling that in the end my work is a little tiny piece of making stuff like this happen. Morally and emotionally I feel great going to a job at a company like this. Here a device like this is helping this man stand and eventually walk again! My prior jobs were all IT jobs in really dismal, "selfish" industries - banking, credit cards, health insurance. Nothing I did helped make the world a better place. The work I did made a CEO richer and that was about it. The companies were built on "How can we cheapen this so we make more money on it." The reason I mention this is I see a lot of IT people who go to their job and feel something missing or don't feel like they contribute to the greater good. I felt that same way for a long time. Then by luck I got in there. I think a lot of us have a moral, emotional, spiritual (or all of the above) compass and this is the kind of stuff that fulfills that.
Maybe this is a 30 old dupe? This is /. after all...
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What's new is the use of machine-learning software to figure out the combination of inputs much faster than could ever be done with trial and error, allowing for far more fine-grained signaling.
They've also figured out that you don't need to blast high currents down the nerves to get the muscles to move and that that in fact hinders the ability of the spine to manage feedback and autonomous control on its own.
Captcha: Instruct
So I have to ask the obvious, but why can't they just run a patch chord between the ends of the nerve fibres that are cut? The question is so obvious that I would be surprised if it hasn't already been tried, but I have never heard of it. Instead of using a device to provide the 'high level instructions', can't they just use some really fine conductor to join up the cut nerves from the brain, and allow our built in controller at the top of our spine to run (and feel) things. i.e. our brain. I'm curious why this wouldn't work, and what kind of trials may have been done in this regard.
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That's already been known since like the '80s. My grandfather has spinal damage from both an accident and polio. He's been using a electrostimulation machine for decades, slowly increasing/restoring function in his legs.
The trick would be something that works about 10X faster so you could 'finish' in a couple decades rather than it being essentially for life....
I don't read AC A human right
It looks like that mouse want to run on his 4 legs and they are forcefully running him on 2 lges.
http://www.startribune.com/business/208307771.html
Anyone who has played Pokemon knows that Electric attacks *cause* paralysis!
For anyone who is wondering what is taking so long with curing paralysis, one complication is that mouse and rat models aren't super great. Their spinal cords recover to some degree on their own. Biologists are limited to measuring increased recovery rates. Obviously, a spinal cord that is healing itself is quite different from a spinal cord which is not. Young children seem to have some capacity to regenerate neurons of the spinal cord (though my main source there is a friend who worked on spinal cord regeneration, and this was over beers.) Obviously, no one has extensively tested that. I'm guessing that kids getting out of wheelchairs will happen before adults getting out of wheelchairs.
There's also promising work in preventing a lot of damage within hours of the initial injury. If you can prevent glial scarring, it seems you'll have a much better shot of recovering. However, that again isn't useful to people who are already paralyzed.
Anyway, research is moving fast enough to be excited about, but still slower than one would prefer.