Excerpt
MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): For the first time, researchers have shown that patients paralyzed from the neck down can manipulate robotic arms with their thoughts. A new report in the journal Nature documents two cases involving victims of brain stem strokes.
One, 58-year-old quadriplegic Cathy Hutchinson was able to direct a mechanical arm to pick up a bottle of coffee and bring it to her lips. It was the first time she'd been able to drink without assistance in nearly 15 years.
The so-called BrainGate system relies on a sensor of electrodes implanted in the motor cortex of the brain, which controls movement. Simply put, the patient's thoughts are relayed from the sensor to a computer, which sends instructions to the robotic arm.
In BrainGate's previous breakthrough six years ago, the patient was able to move a computer cursor with his thoughts.
And for more on all this, we turn to Dr. Leigh Hochberg, a critical care neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He's co-director of the BrainGate research team, which includes Brown University and the Department of Veterans Affairs, among others.
No comments:
Post a Comment