With Hopes of Helping Paralyzed Patients Regain Movement, Intel and Brown University Deploy AI Intel Newsroom

What's New: Intel and Brown University today began work on a DARPA-funded Intelligent Spine Interface project that aims to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to restore movement and bladder control for patients paralyzed by severe spinal cord injuries. "As a Ph.D. student at Brown, I investigated how to interface the brain with machines as an application. Now at Intel, we're combining our AI expertise with Brown University's cutting-edge medical research to help solve a critical medical problem: how to reconnect the brain and spine after a major spinal injury." How It Works: During the two-year program, researchers will record motor and sensory signals from the spinal cord and use artificial neural networks to learn how to stimulate the post-injury site to communicate motor commands. Surgeons at Rhode Island Hospital near Brown University will implant electrode arrays on both ends of a patient's injury site, creating an intelligent bypass to eventually allow the severed nerves to communicate in real time.