Paralysed man can feel objects through another person's hand Keith Thomas, a man in his 40s with no sensation or movement in his hands, is able to feel and move objects by controlling another person's hand via a brain implant. The technique might one day even allow us to experience another person's body over long distances. Keith Thomas (right) was able to control another person's hand A man with paralysis has been able to move and sense another person's hand as if it were his own, thanks to a new kind of "telepathic" brain implant. "We created a mind-body connection between two different individuals," says Chad Bouton at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York state. The approach could be used as a form of rehabilitation after spinal cord injury, allowing people with paralysis to work together, and may one day even allow people to share experiences remotely, says Bouton.

Noland Arbaugh's life changed in a fraction of a second in June 2016. He was a 22-year-old student, working at a kids' summer camp in upstate New York, when he went swimming in a lake. He can't tell me exactly what happened, but thinks one of his friends must have accidentally struck him very hard in the side of his head as they ran into the water and plunged beneath the surface. When he woke up face down in the water, unable to move or breathe, Noland immediately knew he was paralysed. He felt no fear at all, he says. "You never know what you're going to do in those high-stress situations. I found out that day that it's hard to shake me. I am very, very calm under pressure." Elon Musk would ultimately turn this quality to his advantage when, after nearly eight years of being quadriplegic, Noland agreed to allow the world's richest man to implant an electronic chip into his brain. In January 2024, Noland became the first human recipient of a brain-computer interface (BCI) developed by Musk's company, Neuralink. If it worked, it would allow him to control a computer using only the power of his mind. Only four months after he first heard about Neuralink, Noland was on an operating table, with a purpose-built robot poised to insert the N1 chip into his motor cortex. The stakes could not have been higher for him: he was risking infection, haemorrhage and brain damage. "My brain is the last part of myself that I really feel I have control over," he tells me from his wheelchair at his kitchen table in Yuma, Arizona.

A fully paralysed man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) can now communicate with his family after receiving microchip implants in his brain. It is the first time a completely locked-in person – someone who is conscious and cognitively able but fully paralysed – was able to communicate in full sentences, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications this week. "People have really doubted whether this was even feasible," Mariska Vansteensel, a researcher at the University Medical Center Utrecht who was not involved in the study, told Science.org. The unidentified German man, 36, was diagnosed with ALS, a rare progressive nervous system disease that leads to the loss of muscle control, in 2015. When an ALS patient can no longer speak, they can use an eye-tracking device to select letters on a screen. Later in the disease's progression, they can answer yes or no questions with subtle eye movements.

A paralysed man has made the first "direct-thought tweet" after having a computer chip implanted in his brain. Philip O-Keefe, a 62-year-old Australian who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), composed and posted the tweet using only his thoughts via a brain computer interface developed by neurotech startup Synchron. I created this tweet just by thinking it," stated the tweet, which was posted to the account of Synchron CEO Thomas Oxley. After sharing the initial tweet, Mr O'Keefe posted seven further tweets replying to questions from Twitter users. "My hope is that I'm paving the way for people to tweet through thoughts," the final one stated. Follow live coverage of Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope launch James Webb Space Telescope successfully launched by Nasa Crypto experts make bitcoin price predictions for 2022 Follow live coverage of Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope launch The Stentrode device was first implanted in April 2020 after Mr O'Keefe's condition deteriorated to a point that he was unable to engage in work-related or other independent activities. It was inserted through the jugular vein in order to avoid invasive brain surgery, and has since allowed him to reconnect with loved ones and colleagues via email, as well as play simple computer-based gamed like Solitaire. "When I first heard about this technology, I knew how much independence it could give back to me," Mr O'Keefe said after posting the tweet, according to a press release from Synchron. "The system is astonishing, it's like learning to ride a bike – it takes practice, but once you're rolling, it becomes natural.

A man paralysed from the shoulders down has been able to walk using a robotic exoskeleton, controlled by two implants that read signals from his brain. The suit is purely an experimental prototype for now, but researchers are hoping it be rolled out worldwide as the technology advances.

Simon Kindleysides, 34, from Norwich, was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2013 which left him paralysed from the waist down.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI), such as those being developed by Elon Musk's Neuralink startup, risk being hijacked by a rogue artificial intelligence, experts have warned--meaning a person's thoughts, decisions and emotions could be manipulated against their will by AI. The warning comes in a comment piece in the scientific journal Nature this week written by 27 neuroscientists, ethicists and machine intelligence engineers. The researchers use the hypothetical example of a paralysed man participating in a brain-computer interface trial who doesn't like the research team working with him. Artificial intelligence reading his thoughts could take his dislike as a command to harm the researchers, despite no direct command being given by the paralysed man. The researchers write: "Technological developments mean that we are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to decode people's mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions; where individuals can communicate with others simply by thinking; and where powerful computational systems linked directly to people's brains facilitate their interactions with the world such that their mental and physical abilities are greatly enhanced."

Agustin Zanoli had always been an adrenaline junkie, racing across rough terrain on motorbikes and hurtling himself down mountain sides mounted on skis. And when a tragic quad-bike accident left him paralysed, he decided he would not let this hold him back from pursuing his passions. Now, with the help of an electronics specialist and some engineering ingenuity, he can satisfy his need for speed by flying a drone at almost 100 miles (160 kilometres) per hour using only the movement of his head. On January 10, 2012, Agustin Zanoli was 18 years old and spent his summer vacation in Carilo, a seaside resort on the Argentine coast. During a quad race in sand dunes the Cordoba resident, now 24, lost the use of his arms and legs.

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.

A paralysed man has regained a sense of touch after 10 years while using a mind-controlled robotic hand. In breakthrough tests, 28-year-old Nathan Copeland was able to feel subtle pressure in his own fingers when the artificial ones are touched. The world first experiment is an early step in the quest to create prosthetics that can feel, US researchers claim. A brain chip, called the Brain Computer Interface (BCI), has helped restore feeling to a patient with paralysed hands, a new study claims. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh studied the sensations felt by a 28-year-old man with tetraplegia from a spinal cord injury.