Intel and Brown University researchers embark on two-year project to bridge spinal cord breaks using AI

It's estimated that over 17,500 new spinal cord injuries occur each year in the U.S., meaning 54 people out of every million Americans experience one. Patients regain the majority of function within the first six months after the injury, but any remaining loss present after a year is much more likely to become permanent. That's why engineers and neurosurgeons at Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital, Intel, and Micro-Leads Medical have committed to spending the next two years designing and building an Intelligent Spine Interface (ISI), which they say will record motor and sensory signals from spinal cord neurons and learn to stimulate those neurons using AI. Now, with a $6.3 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), they're preparing to implant electrodes in a test to see if severed nerves can be made to communicate. Their work expands on that of teams in Switzerland and at the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center at the University of Louisville, which found that spinal cord stimulation can help restore voluntary muscle control post-injury.