Medical Research

The bionic spine: scientific research brings mobility to paralysed limbs

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On February 1, 2016
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Melbourne scientists have found a way to return mobility to paralysed limbs. The futuristic technology is known by the term, bionic spine. 

The bionic spine is a small electrode device used to interpret electrical signals from the brain compelling an exoskeleton encasing the limbs, to walk. What sets this technology apart from predecessors isn’t the amazing capability to move artificial limbs by thought control, rather, the relatively safe method of implantation.

Until now, devices that could understand thought commands were inserted directly into the brain by surgeons undertaking a craniotomy; a high risk surgical procedure where part of the skull is removed and brain tissue potentially damaged when a device is “punched” into the grey matter. Yet bionic spine patients are in-and-out of hospital with a simple day procedure. Professor Clive May from the Florey Institute says the device is  “put in through a very superficial cut.” The surgeon inserts the device through a small incision on a blood vessel on the neck. The surgeon monitors the device travelling along the bloodstream highway with a fluoroscope until it reaches the motor cortex in the centre of the brain.

Image: University of Melbourne

Image: University of Melbourne

The device is a 30mm long and narrow “stentrode”. It combines stent technology traditionally used to expand arteries but covered in a thin wire network of 12 electrodes made of a nickel-titanium composite for flexibility. When the stentrode is situated in the right location in the brain it picks up the thought “walk” and wirelessly communicates that to a transmitter implanted under the chest. This in turn wirelessly instructs the exoskeleton, or even a wheelchair, to move forth.

The stentrode is making steady progress to market, but first, there are three human trials lined up for 2017 at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. The tests already conducted on sheep yielded exceptional results over a 190 day period. Unlike older technology where the receptivity of the directly implanted device weakened over time, the bionic spine increases its ability to pick up high quality signals when it fuses with the blood vessel above the motor cortex, which also protects it from attack by the body’s immune system.

Interestingly, the research received funding from both the Australian and US armies, possibly because if proven successful in the planned human trials, the technology will be able to change the lives of soldiers who return from combat with paralysis or amputated limbs. The bionic spine might very well overcome paralysis for a number of people in the not too distant future. It also has the potential to increase quality of life for people experiencing a number of other neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s.

The exciting progress of the bionic spine research was published in Nature Biotechnology in February 2016 celebrating a successful collaboration between 39 Australian scientists housed at Parkville’s Florey Institute, the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

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