You may forgive the Sci-Fi esque headline, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction!
The 28-year-old from France (identified in this CNN piece as Thibault) was almost completely paralyzed after an accident in which he fell off a balcony. His spinal cord was subsequently severed.
He lost the ability to move all four of his limbs — but this brain controlled robotic suit changes everything.
Researchers implanted special devices on the sides of his head along the sensorimotor cortex; this is the area of the brain that is responsible for both sensation and motor function.
Electrode grids then collected his brain signals and transmitted them to a decoding algorithm, which translated the signals into movements and commanded a robotic exoskeleton to complete them.
“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,” said Thibault.
Over two years, Thibault trained the algorithm to understand his thoughts by controlling an avatar — a virtual character — within a video game, making it walk and touch objects.
Watch below!
