Brain implants help paralysed man to walk again

Aparalysedman has been able to walk simply by thinking about it thanks to electronic brain implants, a medical first he says has changed his life.

Gert-Jan Oskam, a 40-yearold Dutch man, was paralysed in a cycling accident 12 years ago. The electronic implants wirelessly transmit his thoughts to his legs and feet via a second implant on his spine.

The system is still at an experimental stage but a leading UK spinal charity called it “very encouraging”.

“I feel like a toddler, learning to walk again,” Mr Oskam told the BBC. He can also now stand and climb stairs.

“It has been a long journey, but now I can stand up and have a beer with my friend. It’s a pleasure that many people don’t realise.”

The development, published in the journal Nature, was led by Swiss researchers. Prof Jocelyne Bloch, of Lausanne University, who is the neurosurgeon who carried out the delicate surgery to insert the implants, stressed that the system was still at a basic research stage and was many years away from being available to paralysed patients.

But she told BBC News that it was the team’s aim to get it out of the lab and into the clinic as soon as possible.

“The important thing for us is not just to have a scientific trial, but eventually to give more access to more people with spinal cord injuries who are used to hearing from doctors that they have to get used to the fact that they will never move again.”

Harvey Sihota is chief executive of the UK charity

Spinal Research, which was not involved in the research. He said that although there was a long way to go before the technology would be generally available, he described the development as “very encouraging”.

“While there is still much to improve with these technologies this is another exciting step on the roadmap for neurotechnology and its role in restoring function and independence to our spinal cord injury community”.

The operation to restore Gert-Jan’s movement was carried out in July 2021. Prof Bloch cut two circular holes on each side of his skull, 5cm in diameter, above the regions of the brain involved in controlling movement. She then inserted two disc-shaped implants which wirelessly transmit brain signals - GertJan’s intentions - to two sensors attached to a helmet on his head.

The Swiss team developed an algorithm which translates these signals into instructions to move leg and foot muscles via a second implant inserted around Gert-Jan’s spinal cord - which Prof Bloch intricately attached to the nerve endings related to walking.

The researchers found that after a few weeks of training he could stand and walk with the aid of a walker. His movement is slow but smooth, according to Prof Grégoire Courtine of the École Polytechnique Fédérale

Tina Turner: Music legend dies at 83

Singer Tina Turner, whose soul classics and pop hits like The Best and What’s Love Got to Do With It made her a superstar, has died at the age of 83.

Turner had suffered a number of health issues in recent years including cancer, a stroke and kidney failure.

She rose to fame alongside husband Ike in the 1960s with songs including Proud Mary and River Deep, Mountain High.

She divorced the abusive Ike in 1978, and went on to find even greater success as a solo artist in the 1980s.

Dubbed the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Tina Turner was famed for her raunchy and energetic stage performances and husky, powerful vocals.

She won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2021 as a solo artist, having first been inducted alongside Ike in 1991.

Upon her solo induction, the Hall of Fame noted how she had “expanded the oncelimited idea of how a Black woman could conquer a stage and be both a powerhouse and a multidimensional being”.

Younger stars who have felt her influence include Beyonce, Janet Jackson, Janelle Monae and Rihanna.

Turner was also a style icon - here she’s performing in New York’s Central Park in 1969 wearing a red leather outfit

Born in Tennessee into a sharecropping family, she first found prominence as one of the backing singers for her husband’s band The Kings of Rhythm.

She soon went to to front the band, and the couple tasted commercial success with Fool in Love and It’s Gonna Work Out Fine, which made the US charts in the early 60s.

Their other hits included 1973’s Nutbush City Limits, about the small town where Tina was born. But Ike’s physical and emotional abuse was taking its toll.

It was he who changed her name from her birth name, Anna Mae Bullock, to Tina Turnera decision he took without her knowledge, one example of his controlling behaviour.

She recalled the trauma she suffered throughout their relationship in her 2018 memoir, My Love Story, in which she compared sex with the late musician to “a kind of rape”.

“He used my nose as a punching bag so many times that I could taste blood running down my throat when I sang,” she wrote.

After escaping her abuser, she went on to rebuild her career and become one of the biggest pop and rock stars of the 80s and 90s, with hits including Let’s Stay Together, Steamy Windows, Private Dancer, possible previously. in Lausanne (EPFL), who led the project. “Seeing him walk so naturally is so moving,” he said. “It is a paradigm shift in what was available before”.

And last year we reported how as the result of the same technology, Michel Roccati became the first man with a completely severed spine to walk again.

Both have benefitted tremendously but their walking motion is pre-programmed and looks robotic. They also have to keep their intended movements in step with the computer and have to stop and reset if they get out of sync.

Gert-Jan had only the spinal implant before he had the brain implants. He says that he now has much greater control.

“I felt before that the system was controlling me, but now I am controlling it”.Neither the previous or new systems can be used constantly. They are bulky and still at an experimental stage.

The brain implants build on Prof Courtine’s earlier work, when only the spinal implant was used to restore movement. The spinal implant amplified weak signals from the brain to the damaged part of the spinal column and was boosted further by pre-programmed signals from a computer.

BBC News reported how in 2018, David M’Zee became the first patient to be successfully treated with a spinal implant, so much so that he was able to have a baby with his wife, something that had not been citizenship. He donated one of his kidneys to her in 2017 after it was discovered she was suffering from kidney failure.

Instead, patients use them for an hour or so for a few times a week as part of their recuperation. The act of walking trains their muscles and has restored a degree of movement when the system is turned off, suggesting that damaged nerves may be regrowing.

The eventual aim is to miniaturise the technology. Prof Courtine’s spin out company Onward Medical, is making improvements to commercialise the technology so it can be used in people’s day-to-day lives.

“It’s coming,” says Prof Courtine,. “Gert-Jan received the implant 10 years after his accident. Imagine when we apply our brain-spine interface a few weeks after the injury. The potential for recovery is tremendous”.

She also suffered tragedy with the loss of her eldest son Craig to suicide in 2018. His father was Turner’s former bandmate, Raymond Hill.

Another son, Ronnie, whose father was Ike Turner, died in 2022. She also had two adopted sons, Ike Jr and Michael, Ike’s children from a previous relationship.

James Bond theme GoldenEye, I Don’t Wanna Fight and It Takes Two, a duet with Rod Stewart.

She also starred in 1985 film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome - which featured another of her smashes, We Don’t Need Another Hero - and The Who’s 1975 rock opera Tommy as the Acid Queen.

She found happiness with her second husband, German music executive Erwin Bac. They began dating in the mid-80s, and got married in 2013.

The pair lived in Switzerland, with Turner taking Swiss

Tina’s life story spawned a 1993 biopic titled What’s Love Got To Do With It, which earned Angela Bassett an Oscar nomination for playing the star; and a hit stage musical - aptly titled Tina: The Musical. She was also the subject of HBO documentary Tina in 2021.

In an interview with Marie Claire South Africa in 2018, Turner said: “People think my life has been tough, but I think it’s been a wonderful journey. The older you get, the more you realise it’s not what happened, it’s how you deal with it.”