The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Tetraplegic like ‘first man on moon’ with his robot-aided steps
Injury victim walks again using skeleton suit that is controlled by his brain signals
A tetraplegic man in France has been able to walk while wearing an exoskeleton controlled by his brain signals.
The 28-year-old man, who is known only as Thibault, said taking his first steps in the suit felt like being the “first man on the moon”.
The four-limbed robotic system helped Thibault to move his arms and walk using a ceiling-mounted harness for balance.
The whole-body exoskeleton, which is part of a two-year trial by Clinatec and the University of Grenoble, is operated by recording and decoding brain signals.
Thibault was an optician before he fell 15m in an incident at a nightclub in 2015.
As part of the trial, he had surgery to place two implants on the surface of the brain.
“I forgot what it is to stand, I forgot what it is to be taller than a lot of people in the room. THIBAULT
Sixty-four electrodes on each implant read his brain activity and beam the instructions to a computer.
Software then reads the brainwaves and turns them into instructions to control the exoskeleton.
“It was like (being the) first man on the moon. I didn’t walk for two years. I forgot what it is to stand, I forgot I was taller than a lot of people in the room,” he said after successfully using the exoskeleton.
A previous patient recruited to the study had to be excluded because a technical problem prevented the brain implants communicating with the algorithm. The implants were removed.
Professor Alim-louis Benabid, of the University of Grenoble, said the exoskeleton used is the first semiinvasive wireless brain-computer system designed for long term use to activate all four limbs.
Prof Tom Shakespeare, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the exoskeleton is a long way from being a usable clinical possibility.
“A danger of hype always exists in this field. Even if ever workable, cost constraints mean that hi-tech options are never going to be available to most people in the world with spinal cord injury,” he said.