Ian Burkhart was on holiday with friends in 2010 when his life changed forever. He dived into shallow water and broke his neck, leaving him paralysed from the shoulders down at the age of 19. "At that point, I was getting assistance with everything," he says, "even being able to scratch an itch on my forehead." A few years later, Burkhart got an experimental brain implant that rerouted nerve impulses around his broken spinal cord to the muscles of his arm. It took time, but eventually he was able to use his hands and arms again – and even play the video game Guitar Hero.

Ian Burkhart was a 19-year-old college student enjoying a day out with friends in 2010 when he dove into the water off North Carolina's Outer Bank, hit bottom, and broke his neck. He wound up paralyzed below the elbows, unable to walk or to control his wrists or fingers. The accident did not end his story, though, because just four years later he became the first person to undergo a procedure aimed at restoring movement to his hands. Researchers at The Ohio State University opened his skull and implanted an array of 96 electrodes into his brain. The electrodes recorded the neural activity that occurred when Burkhart imagined moving his hand, and sent that information along wires to a computer outside his head.

Until recently, in all of human history, the number of true cyborgs stood at about 70. Ian Burkhart has kept a count because he was one of them--a person whose brain has been connected directly to a computer. Burkhart had become quadriplegic in a swimming accident after a wave ran him into a sandbar and injured his spine. He was later able to receive an implant from a research study, which allowed him to temporarily regain some movement in one hand. For seven and a half years, he lived with this device--an electrode array nestled into his motor cortex that transmitted signals to a computer, which then activated electrodes wrapped around his arm.

In 2014, Burkhart underwent brain surgery at the OSU Wexner Medical Center to implant the chip. About the size of a pea, this chip, made by Blackrock Microsystems, Inc., sits in his motor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for generating voluntary movements. "It has small wires that act like microphones; each one listens to a handful of brain cells," says Ganzer. With the chip in place, the research team was ready to work on the second phase with a more complex interface. Using MATLAB, the team developed machine learning algorithms that could decode Burkhart's thoughts as the chip recorded his brain activity.

Less than a year after his spinal cord injury, Ian Burkhart was ready for whatever was next. A 2010 diving accident had severed his spine, and Burkhart lost sensation and movement below his bicep. But he had not given up on regaining some of those capabilities. He was working with doctors and physical therapists at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center to manage the effects of his injury. A few months after beginning treatment, he started asking his healthcare team about his options.

It was the summer of 2010, and Ian Burkhart was sizing up the waves as he swam in the ocean off the coast of North Carolina. He had traveled there on a vacation with a group of friends to unwind after wrapping up his freshman year studying video production at Ohio University. He prepared to dive into an oncoming wave and tumbled into the water. Burkhart was a capable swimmer, but the ocean is unpredictable. The wave slammed him into a sandbar--and that's when he realized he couldn't feel his body.

A paralysed man can play Guitar Hero again after having his sense of touch restored with a brain-computer interface (BCI) that provides sensory feedback. Ian Burkhart, 28, suffered a severe spinal cord injury during a diving accident in 2010, which caused him to lose his sense of touch. US researchers found that, although Burkhart had almost no sensation in his hand, when they stimulated his skin, a small neural signal still reached his brain. They have since used their BCI to restore sensation in his hand by rerouting these tiny signals from the brain to the muscle, bypassing his damaged spinal cord. Ian Burkhart (left) is a 28-year-old man who suffered a spinal cord injury during a diving accident in 2010.

A brain implant has restored movement and a sense of touch in the hand of a man with a severe spinal cord injury. Patrick Ganzer at Battelle Memorial Institute in the US and his colleagues have developed a brain-computer interface (BCI) that has allowed 28-year-old Ian Burkhart to grasp and feel objects again. Burkhart has a severe upper spinal cord injury and has complete paralysis in his hands and legs, but can move his elbows and shoulders. He had a brain implant inserted in 2014 as part of research aiming to restore movement in his right arm. The BCI uses the implant to record brain activity that is sent to a processor that decodes these signals into movements, which in turn feed in to bands around the forearm which electrically activate his hand muscles.

While diving into the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of North Carolina with his friends in 2010, Ian Burkhart, then a college student, sustained a devastating spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the chest down. But with a brain-computer interface powered by neural networks, he can now use his right hand to pick up objects, pour liquids and play Guitar Hero. Burkhart is the first participant in a clinical trial led by Ohio State University and Battelle, a nearby independent research and development organization. A Blackrock Microsystems microchip implanted in Burkhart's brain connects to a computer running algorithms developed at Battelle. The algorithms interpret his neural activity and send signals to an electrode sleeve on his right hand.

Last week, the New York Times reported the first successful "limb reanimation" in a person with quadriplegia. Ian Burkhart, 24, had broken his neck as a teen in a diving accident. His spine was damaged at the fifth cervical vertebra, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. Using nerve bypass technology that transmits his thoughts directly to his hand muscles, he has regained control over his right hand and fingers. This is the first time a brain-computer interface has been used to help an individual move his own hands.