Like "walking on the moon", Thibault (30) finally felt what it feels like to walk again. (Image via The Independent)

It's a miracle! A paralyzed man walks after exoskeleton implant

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Sci-Tech
Oct 05, 2019
2731
A quadriplegic man, paralyzed from shoulders down to the toes, had a chance to finally walk the earth once more. An experiment conducted in France at the University of Grenoble saw a quadriplegic man as a participant for the exoskeleton experiment. The result was published in The Lancet Neurology journal on Thursday.

After a two-year trial, the 30-year-old man, known as Thibault, finally made it to the experiment. Using sensors planted in his brain, Thibault could make his paralyzed move again by sending messages to a 65kg exoskeleton body.

Thibault felt like Neil Armstrong at that time. Supported by a harness mounted over the ceiling, he described the feeling as if he was walking on the moon.

The experiment involved surgery on Thibault’s brain. The researchers planted two implants on the surface of Thibault’s brain, covering the section of the brain that governs movement. One implant consisted of about 64 electrodes that detect brain signals and share the signal to the computer. The computer translated the signal into a message that would be delivered into the exoskeleton.

So, say, if Thibault thinks “walk forward”, the computer would translate the brain signal into a command for the exoskeleton to move his legs forward.

A bit about Thibault, he was an optician before a 15m fall rendered him paralyzed. He took the exoskeleton trial in 2017 by controlling a game character with his brain before moving on to the current exoskeleton.

While Thibault was having a good time with the legs, it took him much longer to learn how to send a command through his arms. It was caused by the complexity of muscle and movement that requires more command than legs.

Another drawback of the experiment was that Thibaut required a harness to prevent him from falling from the exoskeleton. This is a piece of evidence that the experiment is not ready yet to go out of the laboratory. However, the experiment promised a bright future for the paralyzed people to finally walk again.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49907356

Science , Technology , Medical , France , Europe , Exoskeleton