Brain-Controlled Machine Training Helps Paralyzed Patients Move Legs

Several patients who had been paralyzed in their lower limbs for years have now regained some feeling and movement in their limbs, after learning to control a robotic exoskeleton with their brain, a new study says.

The findings were unexpected — researchers had been training the patients to use so-called brain-machine Interfaces, including the robotic exoskeleton, with the hope that the patients could one day use the machines to help them walk again.

But the training appears to have had additional benefits: After a year, the patients experienced improvements in their ability to perceive sensations of touch below their spinal cord injury, and regained some control over muscles in their lower limbs, the study found...