Ground-breaking brain-spinal implant helps paralyzed man to walk again

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A team of researchers in Switzerland have developed a cutting-edge medical brain-spinal implant that has helped a man who was paralyzed for 12 years to walk again, CBN News reports.

Carried out by Dr. Grégoire Courtine and 33 scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the ground-breaking research was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The technology which helped 40 year-old Gert-Jan Oskam, 40, a Dutchman who was paralyzed from the neck down after a motorcycle accident, consists of a “brain-spinal interface” (BSI) implant that forms a neurological link using a wireless digital bridge between the spinal cord and the brain, CBN reports. While Oskam had regained some mobility prior to receiving the implant, it was not enough to give him independence in everyday life.

The new technology has provided Oskam with improved natural movement and adaptability to changing terrain because it reconnects two sections of the central nervous system that were disconnected by the spinal cord injury, CBN reports.

“My wish was to walk again, and I believed it was possible,” Oskam told reporters at a press conference. “I tried many things before, and now I have to learn how to walk normal again, like natural, because this is how the system works,” he said.

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