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Scientists are devising ways for people with paralysis to control computers , robotic prosthetics and even their own limbs with their thoughts .

CREDIT : WWW . WYSSCENTER . CH

Bypassing Paralysis

By decoding brain activity with electrical implants , computers can help disabled people move a robotic arm — or their own

By Tim Vernimmen | Q & A — Neuroscientist John Donoghue

What if a brain still worked , but the limbs refused to listen ? Could there be a way to artificially translate the intentions of people with paralysis into movements ? Over a four-decade career , neuroscientist John Donoghue , founding director of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva , convinced himself that he could do it .

In 2002 , Donoghue showed that monkeys could move a cursor with the help of a decoder that interpreted their brain activities . In the decade that followed , he and colleagues showed that the system worked in people too :

Individuals with quadriplegia could use their brain activity to move a cursor . That line of research recently culminated in the demonstration that people with paralysis could control a tablet computer this way .

Donoghue himself went on to further develop the system to allow people to open and close a robotic hand , and to reach , grasp and drink from a bottle by using a multijointed robotic arm . In 2017 , he was a co-author on a study demonstrating how a similar system could help people do all those things with their own arms .

By now , more than a dozen patients have used the technology in experimental settings , but Donoghue ’ s ultimate goal is to develop technology that they — and many others like them — can take home and use day-to-day to restore the abilities they have lost .

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity .

How do you find out which movements someone with paralysis would like to make ?

We implant a small 4-by-4- millimeter microelectrode array into the brain ’ s motor cortex , in a region that we know directs the movements of the arm . This