An exoskeleton that enables movement and provides tactile feedback has helped eight paralysed people regain sensation and move previously paralysed muscles.
The exoskeleton feeds sensory information to its wearer, which seems to have partially reawakened their nervous system. When Nicolelis reassessed his volunteers after a year of training, he found that all eight people had regained sensations and the ability to move muscles in their once-paralysed limbs.
“Nobody expected it at all,” says Nicolelis, who presented the results at the Brain Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 31 March. “When we first saw the level of recovery, there was not a single person in the room with a dry eye.”