This may sound dramatic to some, but I promise you, every word of this is bathed in nothing but raw, unfiltered truth.

AI isn’t just about flashy robots and advanced machinery. It opens up a vista of possibilities – health, education, business, you name it. But it doesn’t just stop at possibilities, it catalyzes action. It catalyzed this Mans action.

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The AI might read his thoughts, but it could not recondition a body that hadn’t taken a step for years. The strength training is comparable to that of a professional athlete, Keijsers said, adding: “It’s physically and mentally demanding. The technology is nothing without the right person.”
At the same time, though, Keijsers regards the technology as astonishing: “If you’d told me 20 years ago when I became a doctor that we’d be capable of this, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
Oskam was 28 years old when he was injured. He was working in the food industry with a team of engineers in a job that involved travelling the world, which he says he loved. He spent his holidays backpacking. “It’s never been in my nature to sit still,” he said.
Confronted with the challenge of trying to walk again, he broke it into smaller targets. One of the first was getting himself accepted on to a clinical trial that was being overseen by Courtine and Bloch.
Despite being confined to a wheelchair, he travelled alone from his home in the Netherlands to the hospital in Switzerland where the research would take place.
He recalls seeing other people arrive at various clinics to be assessed for trials. “They’d bring in family members to assist them — but for this project you needed to be in Switzerland, full time, for six months. I needed to show that I was independent,” he said.
In 2017 he was enrolled in what was known as the “STIMO” study. At this stage, there was no brain implant, no AI. But a strip of electrodes was implanted in his lower back. They sit in what is known as the epidural space, an area between the backbone vertebrae and the spinal cord.

During this first trial, to trigger the electrodes he lifted his heel slightly using a calf muscle, one of a very few small movements he was capable of. The electrodes would fire in a set sequence, to trigger the muscle movements required to make a step.
His progress reached a plateau far sooner than he’d hoped. He could only walk about ten metres and each halting stride was a battle.
Once the command was sent to his spinal cord for a step to be made, the movement couldn’t be modified. “It felt like the machine was controlling me,” he said. “This wasn’t a way to walk naturally — it demotivated me.” He often trained with his father, who bore the brunt of his frustration. “We are close, so he gets to see my bad side,” he said.
He was, however, still determined to take any opportunity to walk again. “Sometimes I wake up and I ask myself — am I really paralysed? Even after 12 years, you’re like, is this real?” he said.

So when he was given the chance of an upgrade — in the form of a brain implant — he grabbed it.
The next trial began in July 2021. Oskam was subject No 1. The big difference now was the creation of a link — the digital bridge — between his brain and the spine electrodes. Two days after the surgery to fit the implants in his skull, he and the research team began to teach an AI how to read his mind. The implants were placed above a brain region known as the motor cortex.
Each monitors the activity of about 50,000 brain cells, which flicker with activity when Oskam forms an intention to move his legs. The AI surveys this activity and makes two predictions. First, it calculates the probability of whether Oskam wants to move a specific joint. Second, it predicts the size and direction of the intended movement.
The researchers first asked him to think about raising a leg using his hip flexor muscles. Within minutes there were signs that the AI was deciphering his thoughts. “It was the best start we could have hoped for,” he said.

Next came months of troubleshooting. The system must also translate Oskam’s intentions into pulses of electrical stimulation that are delivered to his spinal cord. Initially, there was about a one-second delay between the thought and the simulation. “That was too long,” he said. “Now it feels close to being instant”.
Importantly, he’s now able to control each step. He can pause midway through a stride, or make it shorter or longer — all by thinking about it. “I now feel as if I’m in control,” he said.
The system isn’t perfect. Built to prove a concept, the hardware is bulky. A heavy laptop computer, which has to be held in a backpack or rested on his walker, is needed to run the AI’s algorithms. Oskam wishes that it was smaller. Also it can take several minutes to boot up, which he says limits its usefulness.

Some of the media coverage has over-exaggerated his progress, he added. He can walk for a couple of hundred metres, but relatively slowly. Balance is an issue, hence his walking frame. “I was on the eight o’clock news [in the Netherlands] and they showed me walking around a market in Switzerland, buying strawberries. It was as if I could walk like a normal person, without any effort. That’s wrong.”

But in many regards, the project has met or beaten expectations.When he first entered the trial he was badly hunched up in his wheelchair. “His general condition was quite bad,” said Bloch. “After years of paralysis he was very stiff. He’s not the same person anymore.”
Oskam agrees: “I feel healthier, I’m sitting straighter, I’m stronger, I’m more independent,” he said.
As is the case with many paralysed people, his spinal cord was not completely severed. Some nerve fibres were still intact, though not enough to allow him to move his limbs normally. Using the brain-spine “bridge” has improved the condition of both his muscles and nerves, leading to improvements in co-ordination and movement.
As a result, even when the technology is switched off he is now able to stand and to take steps.

Courtine describes Oskam’s progress as hugely gratifying. “Fifteen years ago I was working with laboratory rats, testing ideas that seemed completely crazy — and now we see these levels of recovery,” he said. “How can you dream of a better journey as a scientist? I just hope we get over the final line, that this really becomes a commercially available treatment.”
The next phase of the research began this week. On Monday Bloch operated on the first of four more patients who will be given brain implants. For two, the aim will be to help them walk.
For the other two, the goal will be to restore movement to their arms, which will involve the spinal cord implant being placed just below the back of their necks. Bloch and Courtine have co-founded a company called Onward Medical, which is refining the technology and is working towards gaining regulatory approval.
That will require a larger trial that might involve dozens of patients and Dave Marver, the company’s chief executive, believes this could be done by 2030.
“Every injury is different. And in this field, clinicians are rightfully conservative about setting expectations,” he said. But within five to ten years he believes that it is possible that paralysed patients like Oskam will no longer be told that there is no hope of walking.
Meanwhile, Oskam is optimistic that he can make further improvements. He is about to ask his boss (he designs irrigation systems for gardens) for a standing desk in the office. He’s renovating his home and has been able to stand to paint his walls.
Within the next five years, he believes that he could be spending only a small amount of time each day in his wheelchair. His doctors say that’s an ambitious target but he’s determined.
“With more training, let’s say that 80 per cent of the time I’ll be without the wheelchair,” he said. “The technology is evolving quickly. We have a lot of clever people working on this. So let’s set the bar high.”

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Source BBC NEWS


This may sound dramatic to some, but I promise you, every word of this is bathed in nothing but raw, unfiltered truth.

Source: @indianews

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