With this promising statement of Michio Kaku ends a video cut that I made from a TV documentary entitled "2057 The Body" and which I use inside a presentation on wearable and implantable medical devices. The documentary predicts that in the year 2057 we will be able to inject tiny wireless sensors and actuators inside the body thereby restoring the connectivity of the peripheral nervous system and be able to use our senses and control our muscles again.
Last week, still 46 years away from the year 2057, it was reported in the Lancet that [from the UCLA Newsroom] "a team of scientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA and the
California Institute of Technology has achieved a significant breakthrough in
its initial work with a paralyzed male volunteer at Louisville’s Frazier Rehab
Institute — the result of 30 years of research to find potential clinical
therapies for paralysis.
being struck by a vehicle in a hit-and-run accident in July 2006. Today, he is
able to reach a standing position, supplying the muscular push himself. He can
remain standing, and bearing weight, for up to four minutes at a time (up to an
hour with periodic assistance when he weakens). Aided by a harness support and
some therapist assistance, he can make repeated stepping motions on a treadmill.
He can also voluntarily move his toes, ankles, knees and hips on command.
"epidural electrical stimulation" of the subject’s lower spinal cord, mimicking
signals the brain normally transmits to initiate movement. Once that signal is
given, the research shows, the spinal cord’s own neural network, combined with
the sensory input derived from the legs to the spinal cord, is able to direct
the muscle and joint movements required to stand and step with assistance on a
treadmill.
locomotor training while the spinal cord was being stimulated and the man
suspended over the treadmill. Assisted by rehabilitation specialists, the man’s
spinal cord neural networks were retrained to produce the muscle movements
necessary to stand and to take assisted steps.
[…]
including impairment or loss of bladder control, sphincter control and sexual
response — could prove to be even more significant.
integrative biology and physiology and of neurobiology at UCLA. "The neural
networks in the lumbosacral spinal cord are capable of initiating full
weight-bearing and relatively coordinated stepping without any input from the
brain. This is possible, in part, due to information that is sent back from the
legs directly to the spinal cord."
the individual’s potential to balance and step over a range of speeds,
directions and levels of weight-bearing. The spinal cord can independently
interpret these data and send movement instructions back to the legs — all
without cortical involvement.
[…]
a central nervous system disorder resulting in difficulty or inability to move
the upper or lower extremities. Roughly 1.3 million are spinal cord injured, and
of those, many are completely paralyzed in the lower extremities.
is the application of continuous electrical current, at varying frequencies and
intensities, to specific locations on the lumbosacral spinal cord corresponding
to the dense neural bundles that largely control movement of the hips, knees,
ankles and toes. The electrodes required for this stimulation were implanted at
University of Louisville Hospital by Dr. Jonathan Hodes, chairman of the
department of neurosurgery at the University of Louisville.
watch this interview with
Edgerton."
Last week, I was in Köln, Koeln, Keulen or Cologne (depending on from which country you are) with my family and while on our way to the Dom, Cologne’s well-known cathedral, I bumped into one of the greatest heroes of electric circuit theory: Georg Simon Ohm. The sign says that "George Simon Ohm discovered, in this house, being a teacher at the Old Gymnasium in Cologne, in 1826, the foundation of electric current." 
There was a very interesting lecture from dr. Firat Yazicioglu yesterday. This lecture, entitled Analog Signal Processing for Bio-Medical Applications, was at IMEC Belgium in Leuven. However, Biomedical Group members attended the lecture online, using streaming technology. The lecture was real-time projected in the Davidsezaal at the 18th floor of our building at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). As I really enjoyed the lecture, I would like to share a few main points with you.
"Musical activity throughout life may serve as a challenging cognitive exercise, making your brain fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of aging," study researcher Brenda Hanna-Pladdy, a neurologist at the Emory University School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Since studying an instrument requires years of practice and learning, it may create alternate connections in the brain that could compensate for cognitive declines as we get older."
In future implants might be recharged by the brain. (Photo: Ana Laura Santos)