Multi-electrode array could help to restore hand movement

The new technology is said to deliver messages from the brain directly to the muscles — bypassing the spinal cord — to enable voluntary and complex movement of a paralysed hand. The device could eventually be tested on, and perhaps aid, paralysed patients.

‘We are eavesdropping on the natural electrical signals from the brain that tell the arm and hand how to move, and sending those signals directly to the muscles,’ said Lee E Miller, the Edgar C Stuntz Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the lead investigator of the study, which was published in Nature. ‘This connection from brain to muscles might someday be used to help patients paralysed due to spinal-cord injury perform activities of daily living and achieve greater independence.’

According to a statement, the research was done in monkeys, whose electrical brain and muscle signals were recorded by implanted electrodes when they grasped a ball, lifted it and released it into a small tube.