Body suit may soon enable the paralyzed to walk

An international research team announces it has taken a key step toward achieving its goal of a prosthetic exoskeleton that a quadriplegic could command by brain power.

In a busy lab at Duke University, Dr. Miguel Nicolelis is merging brain science with engineering in a bid to create something fantastical: a full-body prosthetic device that would allow those immobilized by injury to walk again.

On Wednesday, Nicolelis and an international group of collaborators declared that they had cleared a key hurdle on the path toward that goal, demonstrating they could bypass the body’s complex network of nerve endings and supply the sensation of touch directly to the brains of monkeys.

So… what does this mean for the spinal cord injury community?

” For a person with a spinal cord injury, sending such orchestrated bursts of electrical information to the brain could do more than allow a patient who has lost sensation to experience the pleasures of touch again. It could provide the necessary sensory feedback for the user of a prosthetic walker to navigate uneven terrain and steer clear of dangers such as hot or slippery surfaces. “

(click here to view full article from LA TIMES)