Spinal cord lesions alter life, often leave people with serious mobility impediments. While rehabilitation robotics, devices that guide movement during therapy, have improved training for those with spinal cord injuries, its effectiveness remains limited. Without active muscle commitment, the movement assisted by robotic alone does not become enough to the nervous system.
A .Neuroresore team, led by Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch, has now developed a system that integrates without problems a neuroprothesis of the spinal cord implemented with rehabilitation robotics. The researchers’ device offers well -labeled electric pulses to stimulate harmony muscles with robotic movements, resulting in a natural and coordinated muscle activity during therapy. The innovation of Neuroprothetics took advantage of the robotic experience of Professor Auke Ijspeert laboratory in EPFL. This advance not only improves immediate mobility, but also encourages long -term recovery.
“The perfect integration of spinal cord stimulation with recreational rehabilitation or robotics will accelerate the deployment of this therapy in the standard of care and the community of people with spinal cord injuries,” says Courtine. This adaptability guarantees that rehabilitation professionals can incorporate this technology into existing rehabilitation protocols worldwide. The combination of therapies also has significant challenges, since each one requires precise synchronization. Spinal cord stimulation strategies should be modulated both in space and time so that they coincide with the patient’s movement, and integrate them with widely used robotic rehabilitation systems requires a flexible and adaptable frame.
Technology is based on a completely implanted spinal cord stimulator that offers biomimetic electrical epidural stimulation (electrical epidural stimulation). Unlike traditional functional electrical stimulation, this method activates motor neurons more efficiently when imitating natural nerve signals.
The researchers integrated the electrical epidural stimulation with several robotic rehabilitation devices, including running ribbons, exoskeletons and stationary bicycles, ensuring that the stimulation is precisely chronicle with each movement phase. The system uses wireless sensors to detect the movement of the limbs and automatically adjust the stimulation in real time, allowing a perfect user experience.
In a proof of concept that involves five people with spinal cord injuries, the combination of robotics and electrical epidural stimulation resulted in immediate and sustained muscle activation. Participants not only regained the ability to involve the muscles during robotics assisted, but some also improved their voluntary movements even after stimulation went out.
The researchers also worked closely with the rehabilitation centers to prove how well the stimulation system was integrated with widely used robotic devices. “We visited multiple rehabilitation centers to test our stimulation technology with the robotic systems that they use routinely, and it was incredibly gratifying to witness their enthusiasm,” says the researcher at Neuroresore, Nicolas Hankov and Biorebas researcher Miroslav Caban, the first authors of the study. “See firsthand how without problems our approach is integrated with existing rehabilitation protocols reinforces its potential to transform attention for people with spinal cord injury by providing a technological framework that is easy to adopt and display in multiple rehabilitation environments.”
The study also showed the potential of this approach beyond clinical environments, since participants used the system to walk with a rolling and travel outdoors, validating its impact on the real world.
This innovative technology offers a new hope for people with spinal cord injuries, presenting a more effective rehabilitation approach than robotics alone. By making rehabilitation more dynamic and attractive, it has the potential to significantly improve recovery results. Future clinical trials will be needed to establish long -term benefits, but the initial results suggest that the integration of neuroprothetic with rehabilitation robotics could redefine the restoration of mobility after paralysis.