There May Be Hope For Paralyzed Patients
Neuroscientist Susan Harkema is working on a project that could potentially give paralyzed people a chance to be able to walk again. Using electrical stimulation to awaken the spinal, Harkema's first subject was able to improve so far as to gain bladder control, bowel control, and sexual functions. All 3 of the subjects were able to stand but the results have not been revealed as it is too soon to tell. Harkema is working on getting consistent results and not just results in one subject.
There are beliefs floating around that the brain only provides higher level commands for major functions, such as walking. Then the nerve bundles in the spinal cord takes over the detail oriented movements in our body. After an accident, the pathway that allows signal from the brain to go to the neurons in the spinal cord is damaged. These neural bundles are still intact but with no signal from the brain, movement in the legs and lower body is not possible. Stimulating the spinal cord with electrical signal could possibly cause paralyzed people to move without any signal from the brain.
These experiments are especially difficult to perform due to a couple of different reasons. First, there are about 4.3 x10^7 different possible electrode patterns to try. There is no way to test all the different combinations; the amount of time required to test is beyond a subject's life span. Another complication is the process of which the experiment happens. Safety precautions have to come in to play including turning the field back to 0 after every test, which disrupts the cycle because everything has to start over. A trial could be on the verge of producing results, but with this process, systems in the body will "reset".
I find this article to be interesting because there are so many cut throat projects being conducted and advances in the health field are taking place everyday. Some projects like these might yield results that could ultimately be put into a wider spectrum and others might not yield any results. It's just the fact that there are so many researchers out there doing research on something so innovative and something so unheard of that amazes me.
Below is the link to the article:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/spinal-stimulation-gets-paralyzed-patients-moving
There are beliefs floating around that the brain only provides higher level commands for major functions, such as walking. Then the nerve bundles in the spinal cord takes over the detail oriented movements in our body. After an accident, the pathway that allows signal from the brain to go to the neurons in the spinal cord is damaged. These neural bundles are still intact but with no signal from the brain, movement in the legs and lower body is not possible. Stimulating the spinal cord with electrical signal could possibly cause paralyzed people to move without any signal from the brain.
These experiments are especially difficult to perform due to a couple of different reasons. First, there are about 4.3 x10^7 different possible electrode patterns to try. There is no way to test all the different combinations; the amount of time required to test is beyond a subject's life span. Another complication is the process of which the experiment happens. Safety precautions have to come in to play including turning the field back to 0 after every test, which disrupts the cycle because everything has to start over. A trial could be on the verge of producing results, but with this process, systems in the body will "reset".
I find this article to be interesting because there are so many cut throat projects being conducted and advances in the health field are taking place everyday. Some projects like these might yield results that could ultimately be put into a wider spectrum and others might not yield any results. It's just the fact that there are so many researchers out there doing research on something so innovative and something so unheard of that amazes me.
Below is the link to the article:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/spinal-stimulation-gets-paralyzed-patients-moving
posted by Unknown at 8:19 PM
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