From NPR, something truly incredible. The human brain and body are mysteries that we have only just started to unravel…and with a name like BrainGate2 — well, you’ll see…

 

Bill Kochevar received an implanted brain-recording and muscle-stimulating system that allowed him to move limbs he hadn’t been able to move in eight years.
Cleveland FES Center

 

“A paralyzed man has regained the use of his arm and hand using a system that decodes his thoughts and controls his muscles.

 

“I thought about moving my arm and I could move it,” says Bill Kochevar, 56. “I ate a pretzel, I drank water,” he says in a video produced by Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

 

Kochevar was paralyzed in a bicycle accident when he was in his 40s. And for the next eight years, he was unable to move any part of his body below his shoulders.

 

The damage to his spine meant signals from his brain had no way to reach those distant muscles.

 

Then researchers offered Kochevar a chance to try an experimental system called BrainGate2. The effort to restore movement to his arm and hand is described in The Lancet. It involved Case Western, the Cleveland VA Medical Center and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.

 

The idea was to create a new connection between Kochevar’s brain and his right arm and hand…”

 

For a video and more, click here.

 

 

 

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