Through a groundbreaking therapy, four paraplegic men are now able to move their legs.
All of the patients were classified as having "chronic, motor complete spinal cord injuries" and could not move their lower extremities, a University of California - Los Angeles news release reported.
The researchers used epidural electrical stimulation as an experimental treatment for the patients' condition. The stimulator delivers a continuous electrical current to the lower spinal cord, which replicates the brain signals that usually trigger movement.
Three of the study participants were able to voluntarily move their lower extremities directly after the device was implanted.
"Two of the four subjects were diagnosed as motor and sensory complete injured with no chance of recovery at all," lead author Claudia Angeli, a senior researcher with the Human Locomotor Research Center at Frazier Rehab Institute and an assistant professor at University of Louisville's Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center (KSCIRC), said in the news release. "Because of epidural stimulation, they can now voluntarily move their hips, ankles and toes. This is groundbreaking for the entire field and offers a new outlook that the spinal cord, even after a severe injury, has great potential for functional recovery."
The electric currents are applied with varying frequencies and intensities to different parts of the lumbosacral spinal cord, which corresponds with the dense neural bundles that are responsible for the movement of these body parts. Once the spine was stimulated its neural network responsible for muscle movement was reengaged.
When the method was paired with rehabilitative therapy its impact was intensified.
"We have uncovered a fundamentally new intervention strategy that can dramatically affect recovery of voluntary movement in individuals with complete paralysis, even years after injury," Susan Harkema, a University of Louisville professor and rehabilitation research director at KSCIRC, Frazier Rehab Institute, director of the Reeve Foundation's NeuroRecovery Network and primary author of the article, said in the news release. "The belief that no recovery is possible and complete paralysis is permanent has been challenged."
The patients also displayed an increase in muscle mass, better regulation of blood pressure and just an overall improved well-being.
"This research brings up an amazing number of possibilities for how we can develop interventions that will help people recover movement they have lost," UCLA's V. Reggie Edgerton, a distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology, neurobiology, and neurosurgery at UCLA and a co-author of the research, said in the news release. "The circuitry in the spinal cord is remarkably resilient. Once you get them up and active, many physiological systems that are intricately connected and that were dormant come back into play."
