Implanted electrodes could provide movement to paralysed limbs

The work carried out in the US is said to have focused on controlling electrical stimulation pulses delivered to peripheral nerve fibres. When a patient is paralysed, one of the possible causes is damage to the spinal cord, which along with the brain makes up the central nervous system. The brain still works, as do motor and sensory nerves in the peripheral nervous system, but electrical signals can’t flow between those nerves and the brain because of the spinal cord injury.

That communication problem is what researchers sought to address, through experiments that involved transmitting precisely controlled electrical pulses into nerves activating plantar-flexor muscles in an ankle of an anesthetised cat.

V John Mathews, professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the Oregon State University College of Engineering, lead researcher Mitch Frankel, then a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, and three other researchers, all faculty members at Utah, conducted the study.