Installing the world’s first electronic spine

In The Washington Post this week, reporter Jim Tankersley follows a team of doctors as they install one of the world’s first electronic spine replacements, dubbed the Neurobridge. The patient is paralyzed from the chest down, but researchers hope the Neurobridge can restore control of his hands. A chip in the man’s brain will pick up motor signals, transmit them to a computer for decoding, and then beam those instructions to a strip of electrodes on the man’s forearm, effectively bypassing the broken spine. It hasn’t worked yet, but Tankersley follows the team step by step as they install the system and aim for their first successful human trial. It will be weeks before we know if the trial worked, but the Post has promised followups as the case proceeds.