#Gert-Jan Oskam

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The patient Gert-Jan Oskam said the breakthrough had given him "a freedom that I did not have" before.

The 40-year-old Dutchman has been paralysed in his legs for more than a decade after suffering a spinal cord injury during a bicycle accident.

However, using a new system, he can now walk "naturally," take on difficult terrain, and even climb stairs, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

The advance is the result of more than a decade of work by a team of researchers in France and Switzerland.

Last year, the team showed that a spinal cord implant -- which sends electrical pulses to stimulate movement in leg muscles -- had allowed three paralysed patients to walk again.

But they needed to press a button to move their legs each time.

Gert-Jan, who also has the spinal implant, said this made it difficult to get into the rhythm of taking a "natural step."

'Digital bridge'

The latest research combines the spinal implant with new technology called a brain-computer interface, which is implanted above the part of the brain that controls leg movement.

"The interface uses algorithms based on artificial intelligence methods to decode brain recordings in real time," the researchers said.

This allows the interface, which was designed by researchers at France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), to work out how the patient wants to move their legs at any moment.

The data is transmitted to the spinal cord implant via a portable device that fits in a walker or small backpack, allowing patients to get around without help from others.

The two implants build what the researchers call a "digital bridge" to cross the disconnect between the spinal cord and brain that was created during Gert-Jan's accident.

"Now I can just do what I want -- when I decide to make a step the stimulation will kick in as soon as I think about it," Gert-Jan said.

After undergoing invasive surgery twice to implant both devices, "it has been a long journey to get here," he told a press conference in the Swiss city of Lausanne.

But among other changes, he is now able to stand at a bar again with friends while having a beer.

"This simple pleasure represents a significant change in my life," he said in a statement.

'Radically different'

Gregoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne and a study co-author, said it was "radically different" from what had been accomplished before.

"Previous patients walked with a lot of effort -- now one just needs to think about walking to take a step," he told a press conference in the Swiss city of Lausanne.

There was another positive sign: following six months of training, Gert-Jan recovered some sensory perception and motor skills that he had lost in the accident.

He was even able to walk with crutches when the "digital bridge" was turned off.

Guillaume Charvet, a researcher at France's CEA, told AFP this suggests "that the establishment of a link between the brain and spinal cord would promote a reorganisation of the neuronal networks at the site of the injury."

So when could this technology be available to paralysed people around the world? Charvet cautioned it will take "many more years of research" to get to that point.

But the team are already preparing a trial to study whether this technology can restore function in arms and hands.

They also hope it could apply to other problems such as paralysis caused by stroke.

(AFP)

24 May 2023

[ruminativerabbi]

Martian Powers

When I was a boy, one of my favorite television shows was My Favorite Martian, which ran for just three years (from 1963 to 1966) and which starred Ray Walston as the Martian who crash-lands on Earth and Bill Bixby as the L.A.-based reporter who takes him in and who then becomes the sole earthling to whom the Martian reveals his astounding powers. (Did I like the show especially because the Martian took the earth-name Martin? Maybe!) And those powers were truly astounding. Uncle Martin could make himself fully invisible merely by raising two antennae otherwise hidden deep inside his skull and willing himself to disappear. That power, I particularly envied. But there was lots more. He could speak in English to animals and successfully will them to understand him perfectly. (I never thought to wonder why he didn’t address them in Martian.) He could will his body to function in a superhuman high-speed mode that made him able to accomplish work in minutes that would otherwise have taken hours. And he could will other people’s minds to open up before him so he could successfully read their thoughts and know what they were thinking. But of all his super-powers and abilities, the coolest was Uncle Martin’s ability to will inanimate objects to float in the air simply by pointing his index finger at them and then lifting his finger slightly. (He was also an amateur inventor of super-cool inventions, of which my favorite was definitely the “molecular separator,” a remarkable machine able to turn anything into anything else merely by “re-arranging” its molecules.)

Uncle Martin’s powers were basically discrete abilities, but the feature they all shared was the ability to alter the physical world in ways that earthlings possessed of human brains could only dream of. And that was the part that intrigued boy-me and made me wish I could have even some, let alone all, of Martian Martin’s powers, and thus be possessed of the ability telepathically to interact with the whole world in the way we humans can, generally speaking, communicate solely with our bodies.

The way the brain interacts with the body is one of the great mysteries of life, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand well enough to help those for whom the kind of interaction we all take so for granted is not working properly. So used to the whole thing are we, in fact, that it actually takes some discipline to think of brain-body interconnectivity as a thing at all. But it is a thing. And it is truly amazing too. Joan tells me (yet again) to put my dirty coffee cup in the dishwasher by coordinating her lungs, larynx, tongue, lips, and brain to produce sounds that she invests fully with meaning. This message is directly directed at me and I hear it—but, of course, I don’t hear the meaning, just the sound, which my ears somehow turn into the sort of electronic impulses that travel up my auditory nerve into my brain, and which my brain somehow manages to interpret not only as sound but as actual speech, which is to say: as sound suffused with meaning. And then, having successfully deciphered the message, that same brain of mine conceives of the correct response and somehow first wills my right arm to extend out in the direction of my empty coffee cup and then wills the fingers of my right hand successfully to grasp the handle of the cup and lift it up off the counter. And then that same brain, crackling with meaningful intensivity, somehow instructs my body to assume the standing position and to walk towards the dish washer, then to use my left hand to open the door and pull out the rack while my right hand manages to turn the cup upside down without dropping it (most of the time) and set it on the upper rack of the dishwasher. And this all happens so quickly that I fail even to perceive it as a process at all, let alone a complex one: Joan said to do something and I, ever eager not to irritate, do it. I hardly give the matter any thought at all! (Why she needs to ask this of me daily is a different question entirely.) And yet my point is not how fabulous a husband I am, but how quickly that whole procedure unfolds: the whole procedure from Joan conceiving of her wish that I put my cup in the dishwasher to me actually putting that cup in that machine takes, maybe, ten seconds. Or less.

So Uncle Martin could levitate ashtrays and bicycles, but I can will my body to behave in accordance with messages my brain sends out without me understanding even vaguely how any of the above works. I want to take my cup to the dishwasher, so I do it without even noticing the amazing mental and neurological processes that lead from the inception of the desire in the world of ideas to its fulfillment in the physical world of coffee cups and dishwashers.

These were the thoughts that I brought to reading about the truly remarkable announcement the other day that doctors in Switzerland have developed a kind of implant that, when properly set into the brain of paralyzed persons (that is, people whose brains’ instructions to their limbs are not getting through because of damage or deterioration of some sort), can provide a kind of “digital bridge” across which commands that originate in the brain can “find” (if that’s the right word) the correct part of the body’s musculature and then instruct, say, arms to rise or legs to walk. If this sounds like science fiction to you, you’re not alone. Dr. Jocelyne Boch, the neuroscientist in Lausanne who successfully set just such an implant in the brain of the paralyzed man described in the article, said exactly that: “It was quite science fiction in the beginning for me, but it became true today.” (To read the whole article in the New York Times, click here.)

The article is about a man named Gert-Jan Oskam, a healthy looking fellow who was left paralyzed from the waist down by a motorcycle accident in 2011. Now possessed of this “digital” implant, his brain can skip past the damaged parts of his spinal cord and communicate his desire, say, to take a step forward to his legs, which can then obey. The result, that the man takes a step forward, is something all of us take for granted: what could possibly be less interesting to discuss than someone taking a step forward? That’s probably how we all feel…until we are confronted with devastating disability that makes it impossible for our brains to will our bodies to respond in certain specific ways. Another scientist in Lausanne explained the breakthrough in Oskam’s treatment like this: “We’ve captured the thoughts of Gert-Jan, and translated these thoughts into a stimulation of the spinal cord to re-establish voluntary movement.”

We happily non-neurologically-impaired persons can probably not even begin to imagine what it would be like to will oneself to take a step forward and have one’s body not “hear” that command. Nor was this just about getting Oskam’s legs to move: previous efforts to re-connect his brain to his body, he said, left him with a sense of an “alien distance” between his mind and his body, whereas this new breakthrough so closely mimics “regular” thinking that he felt, he said, like a regular person willing himself to raise his arm or willing his leg to take a step forward.

The actual way this works is not for non-scientists like myself even to pretend to understand. (Even the Times’ article was, at least in part, beyond me.) But the notion that science has created a kind of bridge across which neurologically handicapped persons can send signals from their brain to their limbs even if part of the neural highway has collapsed and is non-functional—if that doesn’t qualify as a miracle of modern science, I don’t know what would.

I’m often asked if I find my faith in God as the source of all healing weakened by discoveries like these. The answer, as anyone who hears me preach regularly will already know, is that I don’t at all think that. The human body is a remarkable machine in almost every way. That it occasionally breaks down because a part wears out or is damaged and has to be repaired doesn’t strike me as theologically problematic. Normally, this is an uninteresting procedure: you break a tooth and the dentist fixes it. But advances like the one described above stir up in me only wonder. That human beings are fragile, brittle things that break easily is not the point. That we creatures of God are able somehow to teach ourselves how to fix our broken bits and pieces and parts in ways that even a generation earlier would have sounded like science fiction is, on the other hand, precisely the point. Creativity, intelligence, and inventiveness are the greatest of God’s gifts.

[reasonsforhope]

"It’s long been supposed that implants could connect prosthetics to the brain in a way that stimulates nervous system commands with electrical signals.

Now, this idea is closer than ever to realization in a meaningful way, as one man paralyzed from the hips down is able to walk unsupported, even up stairs, thanks to such electrical nerve stimulation.

The patient, Gert-Jan Oskam, lost all movement in his legs after suffering a spinal cord injury in a motorbike accident. After using a precursor technology to gain back a little bit of mobility, Oskam enrolled in a proof of concept study to perhaps make further advances...

Now, with an implant in his brain, when Oskam thinks about moving his legs, it sends a signal to a computer he wears in a backpack that calculates how much current to send to a new pacemaker in his abdomen. It in turn sends a signal to the older implant in his spinal cord that prompts his legs to move in a more controllable manner. A helmet with antennae helps coordinate the signals.

The scientists developing the technology and working with him detail that he can walk around 200 meters a day, and stand unassisted for around 2-3 minutes. Once, Oskam details, there was some painting that needed to be done, but no one was around to help him. With the new technology, he simply took his crutch and did it himself.

Incredibly, after less than a year, and completely unexpectedly, scientists believe the technology closed the gap in his nervous system, and he can now lift himself out of a chair, and even walk with the help of a crutch, even when the device is turned off.

The scientists are planning in the future to work with patients with paralyzed arms and hands, and even with stroke victims, as the “digital bridge” is a massive advancement in nervous system stimulation technology."

-via Good News Network, June 16, 2023. Video via NBC News, May 24, 2023

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - May 29, 2023

Rwanda’s life expectancy has increased by 20 years in the last 20 years

What did Rwanda change? Three developments stand out: low-cost community-based health insurance plans, national investments in rural health posts, and ramped-up foreign collaborations. In 2020, more than 90 percent of Rwanda’s people had some kind of health insurance. This stands out relative to other low-income countries, where on average 31 percent of people have health insurance.

2. Brandon School Division rejects call to remove library books on sexuality, gender identity

Loud cheers erupted inside a packed high school gymnasium after the Brandon School Division rejected a call to remove books dealing with sexuality and gender identity from libraries. Hundreds of people in Manitoba's second-largest city showed up for the marathon school division meeting, which ran into the early morning hours.

The trustees ultimately voted 6-1 to reject a proposal to create a committee of trustees and parents to review books available in division schools.

3. Lotto winner pledges to fund classrooms in his native Mali

Happiness for one lucky North Carolina resident comes not from newfound wealth from a lottery win, but using those winnings to help schoolchildren -- in this case, from Mali.

Souleymane Sana of North Carolina won $100,000 from a scratch-off ticket. Relocating to the United States from Mali -- a war-torn county in West Africa -- Sana is using his earnings to create a non-profit to help school kids from his hometown.

4. Mountain gorillas rebound thanks to Ugandan veterinarian

In 2018, as their population topped 1,000, they were removed from the critically endangered list and their status upgraded to just endangered. That positive step was due, in no small part, to Ugandan veterinarian Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka. 

Her working home is Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, home to roughly half of the world's mountain gorillas. But early on she also realized that to help the animals and keep them free from disease and poaching, she needed to also help their human neighbours, launching successful initiatives to improve the health and well-being of the people living around the park. 

5. Imports of ivory from hippos, orcas and walruses to be banned in UK

Ivory imports from hippopotamuses, orcas and walruses will be banned under new legislation to protect the endangered species from poaching.

The Ivory Act, passed in 2018, targeted materials from elephants, but a loophole meant that animals other than elephants, including hippos, were being targeted for their ivory.

6. Solar power due to overtake oil production investment for first time in 2023

Investment in clean energy will extend its lead over spending on fossil fuels in 2023, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday, with solar projects expected to outpace outlays on oil production for the first time.

Annual investment in renewable energy is up by nearly a quarter since 2021 compared to a 15% rise for fossil fuels, the Paris-based energy watchdog said in its World Energy Investment report.

7. Paralyzed man walks naturally, thanks to wireless ‘bridge’ between brain and spine

Gert-Jan Oskam lost the ability to walk in 2011 when he injured his spine in a cycling accident in China. Six years later, the Dutch man managed to take a few short steps thanks to a small array of electrodes implanted on top of his spinal cord that delivered nerve-stimulating pulses of electricity.

Today in Nature, an international team of researchers reports giving Oskam a better fix, a way to digitally bridge the communication gap between his brain and lower body. Brain waves signaling Oskam’s desire to walk travel from a device implanted in his skull to the spinal stimulator, rerouting the signal around the damaged tissue and delivering pulses of electricity to the spinal cord to facilitate the movement. Oskam can now walk more fluidly, navigate obstacles, and climb stairs.

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[briefnewschannel]

Brain Implants Allow Paralyzed Man to Walk Using His Thoughts

Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. Now, with a combination of devices, scientists have given him control over his lower body again. “For 12 years I’ve been trying to get back my feet,” Mr. Oskam said in a press briefing on Tuesday. “Now I have learned how to walk normal, natural.” In a study published on…

[nedsecondline]

Brain-Spine Interface Allows Paralyzed Man to Walk Using His Thoughts - Scientific American

Twelve years ago, a cycling accident left Gert-Jan Oskam, now 40, with paralysed legs and partially paralysed arms, after his spinal cord was damaged in his neck. But these days, Oskam is back on his feet and walking, thanks to a device that creates a ‘digital bridge’ between his brain and the nerves below his injury. The device — called a brain–spine interface — builds on previous work by…

[wikikiki-world]

Brain Implants Enable Paralyzed Individuals to Walk Again...

#brainimplant #brainimplants #brainimplantsandinjections #brainimplantchip #brainimplantation #paralyzed #paralyzedindividuals #gertjanoskam #gertjan #technology #elonmuskneuralink #neurotechnology #neurotech #wikikiki #wiki

[trendydigests]

Paralyzed Man Walks Again With Brain-Spine Implants

A Dutch man who was paralyzed from the hips down after a motorcycle accident 12 years ago can walk again with the help of electronic implants that connect his brain and spinal cord, bypassing the injured sections. Embed from Getty Images Gert-Jan Oskam, 40, received the experimental brain-spine interface in July 2021 as part of a study led by researchers in Switzerland. The device consists of…

[efvicioso]

Un “puente digital” entre el cerebro y la médula espinal de Gert-Jan Oskam, un holandés de 40 años tetrapléjico, le permite caminar largas distancias con muletas e incluso de subir escaleras.

https://buff.ly/45tfnXD

[alaturkanews]

Paralyzed man walks more than decade after accident

40-year-old Gert-Jan Oskam suffered a paralyzing spinal cord injury in a motorcyle accident more than a decade ago. Now, scientists in Switzerland have reconnected Oskam's brain with his spinal cord using implants that track his thoughts to move his body. #CNN #news

[markdigitalcr]

Tetrapléjico volvió a caminar gracias a un nuevo dispositivo cerebral entrenado con inteligencia artificial

El “puente digital” le permitó al hombre tetrapléjico recuperar el control sobre el movimiento de sus piernas paralizadas, y logró ponerse de pie, caminar e incluso subir escaleras (gentileza Le Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois )         Hace 12 años, un accidente de bicicleta dejó a Gert-Jan Oskam, con las piernas paralizadas y…Tetrapléjico volvió a caminar gracias a un nuevo dispositivo…

[laquichuong]

Cấy ghép não, cột sống giúp người đàn ông liệt đi lại

Gert-Jan Oskam, từng bị chấn thương gây liệt cột sống phải ngồi xe lăn, hiện đi lại được nhờ thiết bị cấy vào não và tủy sống. Chia sẽ từ VNE: Sức khỏe - VnExpress RSS https://vnexpress.net/cay-ghep-nao-cot-song-giup-nguoi-dan-ong-liet-di-lai-4609454.html

[h1p3rn0v4]

«Me siento como un niño pequeño, aprendiendo a caminar de nuevo», dijo Oskam a la BBC. Como parte de un experimento científico, desarrollado por la Escuela Politécnica Federal de Lausana (EPFL), Oskam recibió implantes cerebrales electrónicos, que transmiten de forma inalámbrica sus pensamientos a sus piernas y pies a través de un segundo implante ubicado en su columna vertebral.

[roizcriteriodigital]

NEUROCIENCIA Un hombre tetrapléjico vuelve a caminar gracias a un puente digital entre el cerebro y la médula espinal, EL PAIS, ESPAÑA

MANUEL ANSEDE

24 MAY 2023 - 09:00 CST

Un equipo internacional de científicos ha anunciado este miércoles “una nueva era” en el tratamiento de las enfermedades neurológicas. Los investigadores han instalado “un puente digital” entre el cerebro y la médula espinal de Gert-Jan Oskam, un holandés de 40 años que se quedó tetrapléjico tras un accidente en bicicleta en 2011, cuando regresaba de su trabajo. Dos implantes en su cerebro leen ahora sus pensamientos y los envían, sin cables, a un tercer implante que estimula eléctricamente su médula. El paciente es capaz de caminar largas distancias con muletas e incluso de subir escaleras con su ayuda. Oskam ya había probado anteriormente un dispositivo más rudimentario en otro ensayo clínico, pero el martes proclamó con entusiasmo la diferencia en una rueda de prensa: LEER MAS https://elpais.com/ciencia/2023-05-24/un-hombre-tetraplejico-vuelve-a-caminar-gracias-a-un-puente-digital-entre-su-cerebro-y-su-medula-espinal.html

El holandés Gert-Jan Oskam, de 40 años, quedó paralizado tras un accidente en bicicleta y ahora puede subir escaleras con muletas

[ghanashowbizonline]

I feel like a toddler – How brain implants helped paralysed man to walk again

A paralysed man has been able to walk simply by thinking about it thanks to electronic brain implants, a medical first he says has changed his life. Gert-Jan Oskam, a 40-year-old Dutch man, was paralysed in a cycling accident 12 years ago. The electronic implants wirelessly transmit his thoughts to his legs and feet via a second implant on his spine. The system is still at an experimental stage…

[xd6002emmagleeson]

New Research on Concepts:

“Two men who were paralysed in separate accidents more than six years ago can stand and walk short distances on crutches after their spinal cords were treated with electrical stimulation.

David Mzee, 28, and Gert-Jan Oskam, 35, had electrical pulses beamed into their spines to stimulate their leg muscles as they practised walking in a supportive harness on a treadmill.

Doctors believe the timing of the pulses – to coincide with natural movement signals that were still being sent from the patients’ brains – was crucial. It appeared to encourage nerves that bypassed the injuries to form new connections and improve the men’s muscle control.

“They have both recovered control of their paralysed muscles and I don’t think anyone with a chronic injury, one they’ve had for six or seven years, has been able to do that before,” said Grégoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

“When you stimulate the nerves like this it triggers plasticity in the cells. The brain is trying to stimulate, and we stimulate at same time, and we think that triggers the growth of new nerve connections.”

The treatment is far from a cure for paralysis: while both patients continue to improve, they still use wheelchairs in their daily lives. But doctors believe the work is an important proof of principle. It shows that precisely timed electrical stimulation can help recover some of the movement patients lose when they suffer such devastating injuries.”

(https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/31/paralysed-men-can-stand-and-walk-after-electrical-stimulation)