Paralysed patients could benefit from robotic aids

The technology is being developed through a £1m government-sponsored research programme involving academics from Leicester University, Newcastle University and Imperial College London.

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, the principal investigator of the Leicester University group, said that the challenge will be to develop a tiny chip packed with hundreds of electrodes for recording neuron activity in the brain plus data processing capabilities and a wireless transmitter for sending signals outside a patient’s skull.

The battery-powered chip would, essentially, decode a person’s thoughts, which are represented in the brain as a pattern of neuron activity. As Quian Quiroga explained, a patient with a spinal cord injury may lose the ability to move his or her arm, for example, but there is nothing wrong with the person’s brain.

‘The guy can see the object he wants to reach, the guy can have the intention to reach to the object, the brain can send a command to the arm – “Reach for this cup of tea” – but the signal gets broken at the level of the spinal cord,’ he said.