When a person sustains an injury to the spinal cord, the normal communication between the brain and the spinal circuits below the injury are interrupted, resulting in paralysis. Because the brain is functioning normally, as is the spinal cord below the injury, researchers have been working to re-establish the communication to allow for rehabilitation and potentially restore movement.
Ismael Seáñez, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and of neurosurgery at WashU Medicine, and members of his lab, including Carolyn Atkinson, a doctoral student, have developed a type of decoder to restore that communication. Through experiments in their lab with 17 human subjects without a spinal cord injury, they were able to cue movement in the lower leg with transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation, or noninvasive, external electrical pulses.
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