Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BRAINGAIT (BRAIN-ACTUATED SPINAL CORD STIMULATION TO RESTORE GAIT AFTER PARALYSIS)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2019-12-01 do 2021-08-31
EPFL obtained approval from the Swiss competent authorities (CER-VD2020-01814) to implant a BSI in three patients with chronic SCI (clinicaltrials.gov NCT04632290). This BSI interfaces the WIMAGINE system developed by Clinatec (CEA, France) with a repurposed neurostimulation systems (ACTIVA-RC, Medtronic). The first participant was implanted on July 28th 2021. After 2 sessions of calibration, the decoder was able to detect the intention to mobilize the hip, knee and ankle of both legs with high accuracy and high reliability. The BSI enabled the participant to perform dynamic and sustained movements of these 6 joints independently. The BSI also enabled the participant to walk independently with the most natural gait that we ever observed in people with SCI. Indeed, the participant described the control of his legs as remarkably natural, since the proportional control over the amplitude of EES enabled a perfect match between the activation of muscles and his intended movements. He also described a robust synergy between his natural attempt to activate muscles through residual pathways and the prosthetic control signals. This proof-of-concept BSI revealed that ECoG recording technologies are the best compromise between invasiveness and signal-to-noise ratio to develop a BSI for widespread dissemination. This milestone also demonstrates the relevance and feasibility of a fully-implantable BSI to restore lower-limb movements in people with paralysis due to a SCI.