“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...
By Maria Cohut Fact checked by Carolyn Robertson The first experiments by scientists, using a noninvasive, high-fidelity interface to control a robotic arm, have been successful. In the future, the researchers aim to perfect the technology to make it more widely available. Robotic arms and other robotic instruments may sound like a futuristic development, but they...
The brain surgeon began as he always does, making an incision in the scalp and gently spreading it apart to expose the skull. He then drilled a 3-inch circular opening through the bone, down to the thick, tough covering called the dura. He sliced through that, and there in the little porthole he’d made was...
“Try not to get shocked by lightning” is generally sound advice for anyone. But we now know it’s particularly important for one group of people: those with brain implants. Five years ago, doctors implanted electrodes into a Slovenian woman’s brain. These electrodes connected to a device in her chest known as an implantable pulse generator...
