That's the aim of a device that could help people control robotic limbs using thought alone – without the need for brain surgery. The device will be trialled in people with paralysis next year. Several groups are developing brain-machine interfaces that allow people who are paralysed to operate a bionic exoskeleton just by thinking about it. These devices decode electrical brain signals and translate them into movement of robotic limbs. Usually, brain signals are detected via electrodes attached to the scalp or implanted directly in the brain.

Toyota is introducing an Iron Man-style robotic leg brace designed to help partially-paralysed people walk. The Welwalk WW-1000 system is made up of a motorized mechanical frame that fits on a person's leg from the knee down. The robot assistant could help older people left partially paralysed after a stroke, Toyota claims. The patients can practice walking wearing the robotic device on a special treadmill that can support their weight. Toyota demonstrated the equipment at its Tokyo headquarters on Wednesday. One hundred such systems will be rented to medical facilities in Japan later this year, Toyota said.

Three people with paralysis have learned to type by thought alone using a brain implant – at the fastest speeds recorded using such a system. Two have motor neurone disease, also known as ALS – a degenerative disorder that destroys neurons associated with movement – while the other has a spinal cord injury. All three have weakness or paralysis in all of their limbs. There is a chance that those with ALS will eventually lose the ability to speak, too, says Jaimie Henderson, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University Medical Center in California. People who have lost the ability to talk may be offered devices that allow them to select letters on a screen using head, cheek or eye movements. This is how Stephen Hawking communicates, for example.

COULD hacking our reflexes allow paralysed people to walk again? Some animals have walking reflexes governed by nerves in their spine – it's why a chicken continues to run after its head has been cut off. Now these reflexes have let paralysed monkeys regain use of their legs after a week or two of practice. Previous methods have taken months. We have no reliable means to reconnect severed nerves in people with injured spinal cords. One way to overcome paralysis might be to detect a person's desire to move and use this to stimulate nerves or muscles.

They meet people, go to work, even fall in love, all without leaving the comfort of their own home. Now, for the first time, three people with severe spinal injuries have taken the first steps towards that vision by controlling a robot thousands of kilometres away, using thought alone. The idea is that people with spinal injuries will be able to use robot bodies to interact with the world. It is part of the European Union-backed VERE project, which aims to dissolve the boundary between the human body and a surrogate, giving people the illusion that their surrogate is in fact their own body. In 2012, an international team went some way to achieving this by taking fMRI scans of the brains of volunteers while they thought about moving their hands or legs. The scanner measured changes in blood flow to the brain area responsible for such thoughts.

This could be the most touchy-feely robotic limb yet. For the first time, brain stimulation has made it possible for a paralysed person to experience the sensation of touch via a bionic hand. Robert Gaunt at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his team achieved this by implanting electrodes in the brain of Nathan Copeland, a 28-year-old quadriplegic. These were inserted into the region of the brain that registers touch from the hand, and linked to a robotic hand in the same room via a computer. When this robotic hand was touched, it triggered stimulation of Copeland's brain.

Ian Burkhart was 19 years old when he broke his neck diving into shallow water on holiday. Since then, he has been unable to move either of his legs, or his arms below the elbow (read Ian's story here). Now, in a world first, he has regained control of one hand and his fingers using a mind-reading device. In the past few years, we have seen paralysed people walk again with the aid of exoskeletons, and by using recorded brain activity to trigger electric stimulations to the leg muscles. Others have trained paralysed people to control computer cursors and robotic limbs by thought alone.