Piloting a wheelchair with the power of the mind
Recent successful tests of neural prosthetics bring the devices closer to
   widespread use 
From: MIT Emerging Technologies - 10/18/2006
By: Emily Singer 

Paralyzed patients dream of the day when they can once again move their
limbs. That dream is making its way to becoming a reality, thanks to a neural
implant created by John Donoghue and colleagues at Brown University and
Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems. 

In 2004, Matthew Nagle, who is paralyzed due to a spinal-cord injury, became
the first person to test the device, which translated his brain activity into
action (see "Implanting Hope," March 2005, and "Brain Chips Give Paralyzed
Patients New Powers"). Nagle's experience with the prosthetic was exciting
but very preliminary: he could move a cursor on a computer screen and make
rough movements with a robotic arm. Now Donoghue and team are pushing ahead
with their quest to develop a commercially available product by testing the
device in two new patients, one with a neurodegenerative disease and the
other suffering the effects of a stroke. 

With spinal-cord injuries and some types of stroke and neurodegenerative
disease, the information-relay system between the brain and muscles is
disrupted. The Cyberkinetics device consists of a tiny chip containing 100
electrodes that record signals from hundreds of neurons in the motor cortex.
A computer algorithm then translates this complex pattern of activity into a
signal used to control a computer cursor, robotic arm, and, maybe eventually,
the patient's own limb.  

The researchers have now tested the device in two new patients, one with ALS,
a progressive neurodegenerative disease, and the other with brain-stem
stroke, a particularly devastating type of stroke that paralyzes the body but
leaves the mind intact. The scientists presented their latest results at the
Society for Neurosciences conference this week in Atlanta, GA. At the
conference, Donoghue, founder of Cyberkinetics and a neuroscientist at Brown,
and Leigh Hochberg, a neurologist at MGH who works with the patients studied,
talked with Technology Review about the latest developments in neural
prosthetics and their plans for the future.

Read the entire article and interview at:
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17629&ch=biotech

Submitted by Kathy Griffin

Links:
John Donoghue's Lab
http://donoghue.neuro.brown.edu/

Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems
http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/content/index.jsp

Implanting Hope
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=14220&ch=biotech

Brain Chips Give Paralyzed Patients New Powers
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17163&ch=biotech

Leigh Hochberg
http://www.massgeneral.org/stopstroke/LRH_bio.htm