A British man, paralysed by a spinal cord injury, was recently able to control the movement of a computer mouse with his brain.  No, this is not some sci-fi movie plot, but the results of a pilot trial of a Neuromotor prostheses (NMPs), part of the BrainGate System. 

NMPs, designed to replace or restore lost motor functions in paralysed humans by routeing movement-related signals from the brain around damaged parts of the nervous system to external devises, are the latest and greatest development by Boston-based Cyberkinetics.

The data collected during the testing is the first ever published, peer-reviewed, clinical evidence that support the creation of useful brain-controlled assistive technologies to provide independence to persons with paralysis. These findings include the first evidence that a person with severe paralysis, years after a spinal cord injury, continues to have the ability to voluntarily generate movement signals in his primary motor cortex, the area of the brain responsible for voluntary movement.

The researchers also found that neural spiking - the language of the brain - can be recorded in humans, routed outside the brain and decoded into movement commands. Importantly, the report describes that a paralyzed person can successfully use the intention to move, in the form of neural spiking patterns, to demonstrate real-time, continuous, two-dimensional control of a computer cursor, as well as to operate a prosthetic hand and control a multi-joint robotic arm.

According to John Donoghue, senior author of the paper, Chief Scientific Officer of Cyberkinetics, Professor and Director of the Brain Science Program at Brown University, "We now have direct, compelling evidence that the area of the brain that controls movement remains functional even years after a spinal cord injury in the absence of a neural connection from the brain to the limbs."

Unlocking new information about how to restore movement following damage to the nervous system is what this pilot test is all about.