Incredible New Article on Spinal Cord Injury Published in Nature

“Electrical stimulation has helped three people with spinal-cord injuries to regain control over their leg muscles and improve their walking.

It even enabled one of them who couldn’t previously walk to walk with assistance.

“It’s a tremendous step forward,” says rehabilitation-medicine researcher Chet Moritz of the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the research.

Importantly, all of the participants retained some improvement in muscle movement even after the stimulation therapy had stopped, and two retained improvements in walking ability.

But researchers caution that the technique, called epidural electrical stimulation, is in its early stages and that it is not clear for what proportion of injured people it could work. So far, it has been demonstrated only in people who retained some level of motor function below their injuries.”