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An Ironman athlete, told she'd never walk again after an accident more than six years ago, is now part of an early clinical trial, in which skull and spine implants help patients move paralyzed limbs.
This week on 60 Minutes, we're doing a story about efforts to help people who are paralyzed with severe spinal cord injuries develop the ability to walk again. And not just walk again, but actually walk using their thoughts to control the movement of their limbs.
A French neuroscientist, Gregoire Courtine, and a Swiss neurosurgeon, Dr. Jocelyne Bloch, have been working together in their lab called NeuroRestore in Lausanne, Switzerland. And they have developed something they call a digital bridge.
So, if you have an injury, the communication between the brain and the spinal cord that controls movement and other functions, it's interrupted.
Dave Marver is the CEO of Onward Medical, which is a company that Dr. Bloch and Gregoire Courtine have formed to get this technology out of the lab, and into the marketplace
So, a digital bridge actually circumvents that injury. It sends signals wirelessly from the brain to the intact, healthy part of the spinal cord on the other side of the injury to enable a person to move or have other critical functions.
