Electrical Pulses Help Paralyzed Patients Move

Four people who were paralyzed below the waist for more than two years were able to voluntarily wiggle their toes and flex their legs, thanks to a promising study that some are heralding as a breakthrough in spinal-cord-injury treatment.

The key to the achievement, say the studys authors, was stimulation of the spinal cord using a commercially available electrical stimulator commonly used to treat pain. The device is surgically implanted just above the spines dura, in the epidura, where animal studies showed it could appropriately relay signals to the legs and lower extremities.

What we have uncovered is a fundamentally new intervention strategy that can affect voluntary movement in people with complete paralysis, even years after their injury, says Susan Harkema, rehabilitation research director at the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center at the University of Louisville and the Frazier Rehab Institute.

(MORE: Paralyzed Rats Learn to Walk Again in Rehabilitation Experiment)

The study follows up the success Harkema and her colleagues had with one patient, Rob Summers. Summers had no motor control below the waist but retained some sensation in the lower extremities. He unexpectedly reported that when he thought about moving his leg, he was able to do so while getting stimulation in his spine.

Harkema decided to stimulate three more patients to better understand why that happened to Summers. She didnt expect them to respond in the same way as Summers did; in fact, she expected them not to respond.

Two of the paralyzed patients, including Kent Stephenson, who was injured in a motocross accident, had no motor control and no sensation in the lower chest and legs. Harkema wanted to test her theory that Summers movement was due to remaining nerve connections in his damaged spinal cord that were somehow reawakened by the electrical stimulation.

Because Summers retained some sensation, Harkema figured that these nerves were being redirected to control some movement. She expected Stephenson not to respond at all to the stimulation, since he had no sensation remaining.

I was the person who was supposed to go through the experiment and not move, and that was going to justify why Rob moved, says Stephenson. I was O.K., and at peace about that as my next thing to do, since the doctors told me I would never move my legs again and never feel my legs again.

(MORE: Meanwhile, in the Lab )

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Electrical Pulses Help Paralyzed Patients Move