Brain-controlled robotic suit enables tetraplegic man to walk

PanARMENIAN.Net - A tetraplegic man has been able to move all four of his paralyzed limbs by using a brain-controlled robotic suit, researchers have said.

The 28-year-old man from Lyon, France, known as Thibault, was paralyzed from the shoulders down after falling 40 feet from a balcony, severing his spinal cord, the AFP news agency reported.

He had some movement in his biceps and left wrist, and was able to operate a wheelchair using a joystick with his left arm.

Researchers from the University of Grenoble in France, biomedical research center Clinatec and the CEA research center implanted recording devices on either side of Thibault's head, between the brain and skin, to span the sensorimotor cortex -- the area of the brain that controls motor function and sensation.

Electrode grids collected the man's brain signals and transmitted them to a decoding algorithm, which translated the signals into movements and commanded a robotic exoskeleton to complete them.

Over a period of two years, Thibault trained the algorithm to understand his thoughts by controlling an avatar -- a virtual character -- within a video game, making it walk and touch 2D and 3D objects.