There is hope for some people with spinal cord injuries: Deep stimulation of areas of the brain with electrodes could help them walk more easily, according to a study and testimony published Monday.
“Now, when I see stairs with only a few steps, I know I can climb them by myself,” said Wolfgang Jager, one of the two patients who participated in the first clinical trial, in a video recording that was broadcast on Monday, transmits
“It’s nice not to have to depend on others all the time,” said the 54-year-old Swiss, for whom going up and down a few steps during vacations “didn’t pose any problem” once the device was turned on. .
Doctors have placed several electrodes in a specific region of his brain and they are connected to a device implanted in his chest. When turned on, the devices send electrical impulses to the brain.
The experimental technique is dedicated to people who suffer from incomplete spinal cord injuries – when the connection between the brain and the spinal cord has not been completely severed – and who are able to perform partial movements.
The Swiss team that coordinated the study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, noted recent successes using implants in the brain or spinal cord to allow paralytic patients to walk again.
This time, the researchers wanted to determine the region of the brain that is most involved in healing people with spinal cord injuries.
Using 3D imaging techniques to map the brain activity of mice with such lesions, they created a kind of “brain atlas”. The region sought was found to be located in the lateral hypothalamus, known to regulate arousal, feeding and motivation.
A group of neurons in that area “appear to be involved in the recovery of walking after a spinal cord injury,” said Gregoire Courtine, professor of neurology at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne (Switzerland).
The researchers then sought to amplify the signal from the lateral hypothalamus through deep brain stimulation, a technique commonly used in Parkinson’s disease.
Tests on rats and mice showed that electrical stimulation “immediately” improves patients’ walking, according to the study authors.
