Paralysed man walks again with brain-controlled exoskeleton

A French man paralysed in a night club accident can walk again thanks to a brain-controlled exoskeleton in what scientists said was a breakthrough providing hope to tetraplegics seeking to regain movement.

The patient trained for months, harnessing his brain signals to control a computer-simulated avatar to perform basic movements before using the robot device to walk.

Doctors who conducted the trial cautioned that the device is years away from being publicly available but stressed that it had "the potential to improve patients' quality of life and autonomy".

The man involved, identified only as Thibault, a 28-year-old from Lyon, said the technology had given him a new lease of life.

Four years ago that life changed forever when he fell 12 metres (40 feet) from a balcony while on a night out, severing his spinal chord and leaving him paralysed from the shoulders down.

"When you're in my position, when you can't do anything with your body... I wanted to do something with my brain," Thibault told AFP.

Training on a video-game avatar system for months to acquire the skills needed to operate the exoskeleton, he said he had to "relearn" natural movements from scratch.

"I can't go home tomorrow in my exoskeleton, but I've got to a point where I can walk. I walk when I want and I stop when I want."
"We're talking about 'repaired man', not 'augmented man'. In a comment piece on the study, Tom Shakespeare from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the exoskeleton system was "a long way from usable clinical possibility."
But Thibault said the trial offered a "message of hope to people like me."