Twelve years ago, Gert-Jan Oskam was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. Now, a brain implant has helped him walk again.
“For 12 years I’ve been trying to get back my feet,” Mr. Oskam said in a press briefing on Tuesday. “Now I have learned how to walk normal, natural.”
The scientists in the study described implants that provided a “digital bridge” between Mr. Oskam’s brain and his spinal cord, bypassing injured sections. Using his thoughts, he can walk, climb stairs and get in and out of a car.
Jocelyne Bloch, a neuroscientist at the University of Lausanne who placed the implant in Mr. Oskam, added, “It was quite science fiction in the beginning for me, but it became true today.”