Tim Vernimmen : Q & A with Neuroscientist John Donoghue Bypassing paralysis

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

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 . Last year , he was a coauthor 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

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