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In a fresh bid to help victims of spinal injury, a new study carried out by scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle has developed a brain implant that enabled temporarily disabled monkeys to learn how to move their limbs again.
Macaque monkeys that had been trained to play a game involving wrist movement had ultra thin electrodes implanted into their brains that picked up electrical signals responsible for the tensing of different muscles.
When the monkeys were temporarily paralysed, these brain signals were fed into a computer, re-worked and sent down a wire to the wrist of the monkey.
Initially the monkeys could not play the game, but quickly learned to control their actions by changing their brain activity.
Leader of the study Eberhard Fetz said, "The monkey was experimenting with different types of movement and different types of cognitive activity to drive those neurons and when he found something worked, he quickly repeated it and adopted the strategy."
The scientists now hope to miniaturise the technology and develop wireless networks to send brain signals around areas of damaged spine to in order to aid function in paralysed limbs.
It is hoped that within the next five years experimental applications could be tried in human spinal injury victims.
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