Researchers from Brown University and Intel Corp. are working together to develop new artificial intelligence-based technologies aimed at helping victims of spinal injuries walk again. When someone suffers an injury to the spinal cord, the electrical signals from the brain can no longer pass to the muscles, which leads to paralysis. Such injuries are devastating because the human body cannot regenerate severed nerve fibers by itself. But medical professionals believe that AI technologies could help some victims to regain control of their muscles. Now, backed by a $6.3 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the researchers from Brown University and Intel are embarking on a two-year effort to create those technologies.

Intel and Brown University have started their work in a DARPA-funded Intelligent Spine Interface Project. The project aims at employing AI technology to restore movement and bladder control for patients paralyzed by critical spinal cord injuries. DARPA or Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the US Department of Defence. The agency is responsible for the development of emerging technologies for military-purpose use. The corporate vice-president and general manager of the AI Products Group, Intel Group, Naveen Rao said, "As a Ph.D. student at Brown, I investigated how to interface the brain with machines as an application. Now at Intel, we are 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."

Spinal cord injuries can be severely debilitating, if not fatal. Recovery is painful and difficult; patients generally regain the majority of function within the first six months after the injury but any loss that lingers after a year will likely be permanent.

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.

Tristram Buckley says the benches in the Forbidden Journey ride gave him "shaken adult syndrome." It's safe to say Tristram Buckley wasn't swept up in the magic of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Buckley, a former visitor to the Universal Studios Hollywood location of the Potter-themed park, claims in a new lawsuit that one of the rides -- Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey -- left him in pain after causing severe injury to his spine, TMZ reported Monday. According to the suit, Buckley took a seat on the ride's Enchanted Bench, which is suspended from a mechanical arm that moves along a track. The seats also pivot and sway to give riders the sensation of flying through the scenarios presented on a wrap-around screen.

Leesburg, VA, April 2, 2018 - A test of machine-learning algorithms shows promise for computer-aided prognosis of acute spinal cord injury, according to a study to be presented at the ARRS 2018 Annual Meeting, set for April 22-27 in Washington, DC. The study to be presented by Jason Talbot, assistant professor of radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, involved using semiautomated image analysis with machine-learning algorithms to assess the accuracy of axial T2-weighted radiomic features for classifying patients by degree of neurologic injury. Several machine-learning algorithms were tested for injury classification based on texture variables. For each trained model, the accuracy of predicting the testing set was recorded, as were variables important to the model. This proof-of-principle study highlights the feasibility of applying a semiautomated MRI analysis pipeline for atlas-based texture feature extraction from T2-weighted MRI at the epicenter of acute spinal cord injury (SCI).

Artificial intelligence is helping people regain their mobility after certain neurological injuries. A robotic harness controlled by a neural network offers tailored treatment that has immediately improved their ability to walk normally. To avoid persistent difficulties walking after a stroke or spinal injury, walking assistance is crucial. But this is a slow process that, if done wrong, can lead to a permanently impaired gait. In the past, several physiotherapists were needed to physically support and guide each person through the process of learning to walk again.

Scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio say they've used electronics to get around a paralyzed man's spinal injury, permitting him to use an implant in his brain to move his arm and hand. The test represents the first time that signals collected in the brain have been conveyed directly to electrodes placed inside someone's arm to restore movement, says Robert Kirsch, a biomedical engineer at Case Western. He also directs the Cleveland FES Center, which develops technologies for people with paralysis. The project, described today at the meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, is a step toward a wireless system able to transmit brain signals through the air to electronics sewn into the limbs of paralyzed people, thereby restoring the ability to carry out simple daily tasks. People familiar with the study's results said the volunteer's movements are still rough, and not well coӧrdinated.

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.

Nathan Copeland is telling a researcher which of his fingers he feels a touch on. But the researcher is touching a robotic hand, not Copeland's, whose hand hasn't felt a thing in over a decade. In this "proof of principle" experiment, a man whose spinal injury removed all sensation from his limbs was able to "feel" pressure on several robotic digits connected directly to his brain. It's a long way from a cybernetic hand, but it opens the possibility of using one to even more of those who need it. That said, this is still important research because it skips a step many other prosthetics rely on: the peripheral nervous system.