“It’s just enhancing his capacity to walk.” “At no point is controlled by the machine,” said Prof Eduardo Martin Moraud, of Lausanne University hospital. The aim is to correct abnormal signals that are sent from the brain, down the spine, to the legs in order to restore normal movement. The patient wears a movement sensor on each leg and when walking is initiated the implant automatically switches on and begins delivering pulses of stimulation to the spinal neurons. Electrodes were then implanted at these locations, allowing stimulation to be delivered directly into the spine. The implant aims to overcome this by directly targeting the spinal area responsible for activating leg muscles during walking.įirst, the team developed a personalised anatomical map of Marc’s spinal cord that identified the precise locations that were involved in signalling to the leg to move. Conventional treatments, such as the drug Levodopa, can improve symptoms but are unable to completely restore normal movement. For about 90% of patients with advanced illness, this leads to difficulties with walking, including balance deficits and freezing of gait. Parkinson’s disease is caused by the progressive loss of dopamine-producing neurons. “It is impressive to see how by electrically stimulating the spinal cord in a targeted manner, in the same way as we have done with paraplegic patients, we can correct walking disorders caused by Parkinson’s disease,” said Jocelyne Bloch, neurosurgeon and professor at the CHUV Lausanne University hospital, who co-led the work. But the Swiss team, who have a longstanding programme to develop brain-machine interfaces to overcome paralysis, hope that their technology could offer an entirely new approach to treating movement deficits in those with Parkinson’s disease. The implant is yet to be tested in a full clinical trial.
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