Robotic training AASDAP/Lente Viva Filmes/PA Wire

Eight paralysed people have regained some feeling in their legs after training with brain-controlled robotic systems.

Miguel Nicolelis, at Duke University in North Carolina, and his team used a virtual reality system which connects to the brain to simulate leg control in eight people who had suffered spinal cord injuries.

Of these, five people had been paralysed for at least five years, while two had been paralysed for more than a decade.


But after a year of training in this way, four of the paralysed people were experiencing sensations and muscle control in their legs that was so strong that their diagnoses were upgraded from complete to partial paralysis.

Read more: Brain implant allows paralysed man to sip a beer at his own pace

Most of the people who took part in the training also said they had better bladder control and bowel function, meaning they could cut back on laxatives and catheters, reducing their risk of catching life-threatening infections.

“Until now, nobody has seen recovery of these functions in a patient so many years after being diagnosed with complete paralysis,” says Nicolelis.

Robotic suit

As part of the training, the eight people spent at least two hours a week using their brain signals to control devices. Wearing caps lined with 11 non-invasive electrodes that recorded their brain activity, they were all taught how to operate their own avatar – a digital likeness of themselves – in a virtual reality environment.

When asked to imagine walking in the virtual world, the training reinserted the idea of their lower limbs into their brains, says Nicolelis.

Moving virtual feet AASDAP/Lente Viva Filmes/PA Wire

Later on in the training programme, walking devices and overhead harnesses were introduced to test their control over their posture, balance and ability to use upper limbs. One of these devices was the same kind of brain-controlled robotic exoskeleton that a paralysed man famously used to kick a football during the 2014 World Cup opening ceremony.

After 13 months of training, a woman who had been paralysed for more than a decade was able to move her legs voluntarily while her body weight was supported in a harness.

Rekindling nerves

The eight people have now been undergoing this training for more than two years, and Nicolelis’s team will continue to track their progress.

Nicolelis thinks training with brain-machine interfaces in this way rekindles spinal nerves that have been left intact but gone silent. “It may be a small number of fibres that remain, but this may be enough to convey signals from the brain to the spinal cord,” he says.

Nicolelis now plans to test these methods in people who have been injured more recently, to see whether quicker treatment leads to better improvements.

Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/srep30383