Hope for paralysed patients

PARALYSED accident victims and stroke survivors have had their dreams of regaining some movement boosted by tests which restored the use of arms and hands in monkeys.

Researchers found that electrical stimulation of surviving nerves in the stricken animals’ spinal cord could improve motor control.

Human patients are being recruited for clinical trials in the US.

Dr Marco Capogrosso, of Pittsburgh University, said a system was built using remaining neurons to restore the link between the brain and the monkey’s arm via pulses to its spinal cord.

This would “potentially enable a person with paralysis to perform daily tasks”.

Macaques with partial arm paralysis learned to reach, grasp and pull a lever to receive a food treat when fitted with brain implants, as described in the journal Nature Neuroscience.