I’m very excited to see how this progresses and how A.I. can help solve medical issues that have up to now stumped us.
One really interesting thing they’ve reported about this is that it requires a head set to connect the brain implants to the spine electrodes, but after a while the patient was able to walk using a stroller without the headset because the body regrew nerve tissue and Reenabled some connection to the brain.
It's very cool, and uses the same principles as lots of other neurorehab electrical devices out there. I used an FES ('Functional Electrical Stimulation') device for a while that has a little accelerometer in it to figure out when I intended to take a step, and then stimulate (via conductive pads placed atop the skin) the correct muscles in the lower leg to lift the ankle up (dorsiflexion). Over time, when the brain correlates X input with Y result, even if Y is very very weak, bruised nerves can recover (in the case of recent brain/spinal injuries) and new nerves can grow. I was advised to have the device on its 'training' setting (where it would periodically activate a 'step') even when lounging on the sofa. Hebb said: "What fires together, wires together"...
My suspicion (tho I'd love to be educated on this) is that the reference patient did not have a truly 'complete' spinal cord injury, but rather one where there were at least some nervecells remaining/bruised. If there was a complete section of nerve wiring missing, I don't see how re-growth could occur (but perhaps there's some stem-cell wizardry that can help with that???). Anyway, it wouldn't matter much; if these devices become small and convenient enough, it's not much burden to wear them forever.
Yeah, if you watch the supplemental videos they mention that the patient had a partial injury and after 7 years of physical therapy was still unable to walk independently. After getting this implant and doing 6 months of PT, the patient was able to walk unassisted even with the brain interface not powered on.
> My suspicion (tho I'd love to be educated on this) is that the reference patient did not have a truly 'complete' spinal cord injury, but rather one where there were at least some nervecells remaining/bruised.
This is mentioned in the article at the start of the Discussion section:
> The validation of this digital bridge was restricted to a single individual with severe but partial damage of the spinal cord, and it therefore remains unclear whether the BSI will be applicable to other injury locations and severities. However, several observations suggest that this approach will be applicable to a broad population of individuals with paralysis.
The authors likewise anticipate that there won't be any technical hurdles in miniaturizing the technology and making it self-calibrating.
> ..the most notable achievement is the fact that these three patients had complete spinal cord injury, instead of a partial one as with the 2018 patients.
Patients with “complete” spinal cord injury have been successfully treated as well:
This is very exciting! One possibility that is, I think, covered up by all the hype around "AI works like our brains" (which I disagree with) is that: our brains are too complex for us to understand and ML may allow us to build more capable interfaces that we still don't understand - but which are easier to understand than the brain. It's an extremely promising new avenue for incremental progress.
>"AI works like our brains" (which I disagree with)
While AI works like our brains is patently false it might just be analogous enough to not matter in the end if the details are the same to get similar emergent behavior.
Most applications like these don't require "emergent behavior" at all really... It's basically domain mapping from data. Super cool, but it's not like these models are all of a sudden forming personalities or something...
"AI works like our brains" is indeed generally not so, but CNNs do work like the visual cortex, somewhat--it's where they got the idea for them in the first place.
Always good to see novel uses of ML. However, let's not pretend this will ever offer any benefit to people with spinal cord injuries.
Any research that does not involve repairing the physical damage to the spinal cord itself is a distraction. Anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the physiology involved or is being deliberately disingenuous.
It's hard to think of an apt analogy, but perhaps consider a patient who walks into a doctor's office with a broken arm. Instead of setting the break and applying a cast, the doctor offers them a referral to a psychologist to help them adjust to life with a broken arm.
> Always good to see novel uses of ML. However, let's not pretend this will ever offer any benefit to people with spinal cord injuries.
Apart from the person in their study who can now walk, that had the spinal injury (with the use of a crawler)...
In relation to your second point, you are aware regenereative science and this implant approach can progress in parallel? This offers something tangible, plus with more refining can be rolled out en masse. What regenerative science can be applied now that would give such a quality of life improvement?
The research subject has an incomplete C5/C6 injury and still cannot walk unassisted. Not to mention still has limited use of their hands and likely severely impacted somatosensation. It's not physically possible to manufacture implants dense enough to re-map the entirety (or even a useful fraction) of motor and sensory pathways. Attempting to implant a significant number of artificial electrodes also risks further damage.
I'm not claiming that regenerative treatments and implants can't progress in parallel. I'm simply claiming implants are a dead-end and are distracting resources away from regenerative research.
> Moreover, neurorehabilitation supported by the BSI improved neurological recovery. The participant regained the ability to walk with crutches overground even when the BSI was switched off. This digital bridge establishes a framework to restore natural control of movement after paralysis.
So, not only did the brain–spine interface ("BSI") itself allow the patent to walk when they couldn't before (which strikes me as an absolute win, even if you call it a distraction) but it also facilitated neurological recovery over the longer term.
The part where the patient was able to turn the device off and still walk with handicap was the part that knocked it out of the park.
I am more interested in how well was the patient able to recover, fully or with care? And is there a possibility that the device can be removed entirely?
If it seems like an absurd take, please at least consider that perhaps I'm not the one who's missing something, that perhaps I have decades of experience following the research and its results. I understand it's a bad look to shit on what should be a positive story: technology fixes disabled man, news at 11. But these types of treatments have been around for at least 25 years and always end up the same - a big hype cycle, some funding grants for the researchers, a few grads get their Phd's, then everyone realizes it doesn't actually work, the effects were mostly placebo or attributed to other factors (such as the surgical installation of the implant alleviating undiagnosed pressure on the nerves), then it goes quiet for a couple years until people forget and the cycle repeats.
People who don't actually live with or understand spinal cord injury often fall into the trap of thinking that "if we can just make their legs move, then they're fixed!" Completely ignoring that somatosensation (sensory feedback) is probably 2/3 or more of the signal and implants can't communicate that at all. It's difficult for many able-bodied people to understand that spinal cord injuries are not the same as needing glasses (to address another comment). Not the same ballpark, not even the same sport.
One must ask the question of what the goal of the research is? Is the goal to restore spinal cord function or is the goal to advance BMI technology? When your funding source and research institution are committed to a particular path, the "goal" starts to take whatever shape is necessary to align with the former two.
I suppose it's only fair for me to consider that perhaps the goal is better BMI's instead of restoring spinal cord function. To which I would have to applaud the effort. However, I have it on good authority that given the option, those suffering from spinal cord injuries would rather see more research going toward solving the problem and not the symptom.
> If it seems like an absurd take, please at least consider that perhaps I'm not the one who's missing something, that perhaps I have decades of experience following the research and its results
But if that's the case why are you talking like you're talking in your comment above?
> Any research that does not involve repairing the physical damage to the spinal cord itself is a distraction.
People think you're trolling because this is how trolling sounds.
> please at least consider that perhaps I'm not the one who's missing something, that perhaps I have decades of experience following the research and its results
The woe-is-me passive-aggression isn't helping your cause, dude. Share what you know, nicely, even if you're disagreeing with something, and people won't jump on you.
> The woe-is-me passive-aggression isn't helping your cause, dude. Share what you know, nicely, even if you're disagreeing with something, and people won't jump on you
I understand your take now, but it still seems like the two approaches are complementary. Specifically because afaik the only known way to restore spinal cord function is to get signals traveling through whatever means, so that the body will regrow the pathways. (I am not at all an expert, but my understanding is that) stem cells aren't going to do any good if they're just wedged in randomly. If they or something else carries a signal, they will organize to strengthen that signal and can then permanently repair function (at least partially). If they don't carry a signal, they will wither and die. So it seems to me that when you don't have intact nerves carrying signals from point A to point B, then anything that carries those signals will delay degeneration and possibly facilitate repair. If you need wires or nanotubes or little strips of squid skin to carry those signals initially, then that's what you'll want to do.
You are angry that science isn't progressing how you feel it should (i.e. solely into regenerative solutions and nothing else, ignoring the fact that the article is about a solution that restores function). You are basing that on the fact that you feel that if one avenue is explored, other avenues will not be. This fact is not substantiated (and as far as I've understood in the past, it can't be - the data isn't available. But you're welcome to prove me wrong).
The only leftover arguments are then "people prefer more complete solutions", but is a little unbelievable that these same people would not prefer any solution at all over no solution. And "I have decades of experience" is supposed to somehow stifle the fact that some people do not agree with you. An argument from background is just not very compelling, you do not have one based on logic and in terms of feelings you are so antagonistic the primary response is to not engage with your argument positively.
If you truly want to change someone's mind, I'd really start with toning down the antagonism. Or if you must be, at least provide a more compelling logical argument based on some actual data.
You do have a point and I'll acknowledge that "coming in hot" was far from the best approach and certainly not as persuasive as a calmly reasoned argument without the emotion would have been. But I need to stress that I do not see the whole endeavour of solving spinal cord injury as pointless - I just see the biological approach as having far more promise albeit much less attention for a number of reasons, including the implant approach being less burdened with regulation and having more spin-off potential. I'll reiterate my previous statement that I do want to see real progress made, but I honestly (and I believe correctly) see this approach as a dead-end. There have just been so many similar "successful" studies that failed to translate into useful / effective treatments. I am highly skeptical of the stated results given that there have been so many studies like this that went nowhere (what happened to the last 10, 20, etc previous attempts?). Maybe it's different this time? I invite you to follow-up on this individual's progress in a year or two.
Many of the previous studies also claimed similar results - or at least pop-media sensationalised already generously interpreted results to make it seem so. But if they were all so successful, why are they not routinely used? Given how important mobility is to quality of life and how costly its impairment is, why is it that of the dozens, even hundreds of "successful" studies, most people affected by SCI see no benefit? I think we have to at least consider the possibility that these particular treatments are not as successful or as effective as the studies claim at providing net quality of life improvement. And I think this also addresses your argument that any solution is better than no solution, which presupposes that what we're looking at is in fact a solution and not just another "successful" study that gets shelved because of its inability to translate into a treatment that provides a net quality of life improvement.
What is the practical reason to favor electrical implants over electromagnetic ones? One would conclude that using electromagnetic induction would be a no-brainer when it is very clear the body works against electrical probes (by fighting the implants). Could someone more knowledgeable than myself clarify this.
It's very difficult (ie: impossible) to target individual nerve fibres with induction. Direct stimulation is the only way to achieve the required resolution.
The amount of current required for magnetic stimulation is much higher and not compatible with implantable devices. TMS requires large coils and currents relative to electrical stimulation.
Bio-compatibility issues are not intractable. We know about many biomaterials that the body doesn't have a strong adverse reaction to. I'm sure people are developing materials that are both conductive and bio-compatible.
Speak for yourself there, I've been in favor of brain augments essentially ever since I was aware of them as a concept as a teen and hoping they'd arrive in my lifetime. Personally it's because I don't hold most of my identity as sacred and would like to have full control over my automatic behaviors and thought patterns.
Yes. People like Iain M Banks and other scifi makes a good sales pitch. But what about the opportunity to live a natural life, attempting to find the full expression as God (whatever that is) created us? And do you really feel comfortable giving a tech company access to your mind?
As a student I was taught that some day stem cells would allow sci patients to recover. Instead, hard tech seems to be the more apparent and workable solution.
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[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadOne really interesting thing they’ve reported about this is that it requires a head set to connect the brain implants to the spine electrodes, but after a while the patient was able to walk using a stroller without the headset because the body regrew nerve tissue and Reenabled some connection to the brain.
My suspicion (tho I'd love to be educated on this) is that the reference patient did not have a truly 'complete' spinal cord injury, but rather one where there were at least some nervecells remaining/bruised. If there was a complete section of nerve wiring missing, I don't see how re-growth could occur (but perhaps there's some stem-cell wizardry that can help with that???). Anyway, it wouldn't matter much; if these devices become small and convenient enough, it's not much burden to wear them forever.
This is mentioned in the article at the start of the Discussion section:
> The validation of this digital bridge was restricted to a single individual with severe but partial damage of the spinal cord, and it therefore remains unclear whether the BSI will be applicable to other injury locations and severities. However, several observations suggest that this approach will be applicable to a broad population of individuals with paralysis.
The authors likewise anticipate that there won't be any technical hurdles in miniaturizing the technology and making it self-calibrating.
Patients with “complete” spinal cord injury have been successfully treated as well:
https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-02-08/three-par...
While AI works like our brains is patently false it might just be analogous enough to not matter in the end if the details are the same to get similar emergent behavior.
Any research that does not involve repairing the physical damage to the spinal cord itself is a distraction. Anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the physiology involved or is being deliberately disingenuous.
It's hard to think of an apt analogy, but perhaps consider a patient who walks into a doctor's office with a broken arm. Instead of setting the break and applying a cast, the doctor offers them a referral to a psychologist to help them adjust to life with a broken arm.
Apart from the person in their study who can now walk, that had the spinal injury (with the use of a crawler)...
In relation to your second point, you are aware regenereative science and this implant approach can progress in parallel? This offers something tangible, plus with more refining can be rolled out en masse. What regenerative science can be applied now that would give such a quality of life improvement?
I'm not claiming that regenerative treatments and implants can't progress in parallel. I'm simply claiming implants are a dead-end and are distracting resources away from regenerative research.
Do you have data to show funding gets moved away from regenerative research?
Dentures? Distraction.
Prosthetic arms and legs? Distraction. Why aren't we regrowing limbs yet? Lizards can do it. Follow the money.
> Moreover, neurorehabilitation supported by the BSI improved neurological recovery. The participant regained the ability to walk with crutches overground even when the BSI was switched off. This digital bridge establishes a framework to restore natural control of movement after paralysis.
So, not only did the brain–spine interface ("BSI") itself allow the patent to walk when they couldn't before (which strikes me as an absolute win, even if you call it a distraction) but it also facilitated neurological recovery over the longer term.
I am more interested in how well was the patient able to recover, fully or with care? And is there a possibility that the device can be removed entirely?
People who don't actually live with or understand spinal cord injury often fall into the trap of thinking that "if we can just make their legs move, then they're fixed!" Completely ignoring that somatosensation (sensory feedback) is probably 2/3 or more of the signal and implants can't communicate that at all. It's difficult for many able-bodied people to understand that spinal cord injuries are not the same as needing glasses (to address another comment). Not the same ballpark, not even the same sport.
One must ask the question of what the goal of the research is? Is the goal to restore spinal cord function or is the goal to advance BMI technology? When your funding source and research institution are committed to a particular path, the "goal" starts to take whatever shape is necessary to align with the former two.
I suppose it's only fair for me to consider that perhaps the goal is better BMI's instead of restoring spinal cord function. To which I would have to applaud the effort. However, I have it on good authority that given the option, those suffering from spinal cord injuries would rather see more research going toward solving the problem and not the symptom.
But if that's the case why are you talking like you're talking in your comment above?
> Any research that does not involve repairing the physical damage to the spinal cord itself is a distraction.
People think you're trolling because this is how trolling sounds.
> please at least consider that perhaps I'm not the one who's missing something, that perhaps I have decades of experience following the research and its results
The woe-is-me passive-aggression isn't helping your cause, dude. Share what you know, nicely, even if you're disagreeing with something, and people won't jump on you.
Has he been not-nice?
The only leftover arguments are then "people prefer more complete solutions", but is a little unbelievable that these same people would not prefer any solution at all over no solution. And "I have decades of experience" is supposed to somehow stifle the fact that some people do not agree with you. An argument from background is just not very compelling, you do not have one based on logic and in terms of feelings you are so antagonistic the primary response is to not engage with your argument positively.
If you truly want to change someone's mind, I'd really start with toning down the antagonism. Or if you must be, at least provide a more compelling logical argument based on some actual data.
Many of the previous studies also claimed similar results - or at least pop-media sensationalised already generously interpreted results to make it seem so. But if they were all so successful, why are they not routinely used? Given how important mobility is to quality of life and how costly its impairment is, why is it that of the dozens, even hundreds of "successful" studies, most people affected by SCI see no benefit? I think we have to at least consider the possibility that these particular treatments are not as successful or as effective as the studies claim at providing net quality of life improvement. And I think this also addresses your argument that any solution is better than no solution, which presupposes that what we're looking at is in fact a solution and not just another "successful" study that gets shelved because of its inability to translate into a treatment that provides a net quality of life improvement.
Just a handful of previous studies for reference:
1. Epidural Stimulation (dates back to 2002): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8374568/
2. Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (dates back to 1997): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4589923/
3. Functional electrical stimulation (dates back prior to 2004): https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Functional_electrical_stimula...
4. Spinal Cord Neuromodulation (dates back prior to 2007): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17387353/
5. Magnetic Spinal Cord Stimulation (dates back to at least 2018): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-30232-z
"Please give us a neural lace!"
Says no one... yet. But the priming is underway!