Keith Thomas broke his neck diving into a pool in 2020 and was paralyzed from the chest down. Six years later, thanks to a set of brain implants that bypass his spinal injury, he can feed himself, drink from a cup, and feel the fur on his dog again, the Guardian reports.
The system, built by Prof Chad Bouton’s team at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, is a “double neural bypass”: electrodes in Thomas’s brain read his intention to move and route it straight to his arm and hand muscles, while pressure sensors on his fingers send touch back the other way, so his brain feels what his hand grips — delicate enough to handle an egg shell. Writing in Nature Medicine, the team reports that after 35 weeks of training, his right-arm strength rose 86% and his left 62%.
Strangest of all, the rewiring seems to be sticking: some movement and sensation now persist even when the device is switched off. “In a recent follow up, it was found these gains were still present after more than two years,” said Bouton.
Previously:
• Paralyzed 40-year-old man walks again after doctors gave him brain and spine implants
• Chip implanted in paralyzed man’s brain helps him regain use of his hand