The quadriplegic who moved his muscles with his mind

A brain implant re-enabled Ian Burkhart to clench his hand, pioneering a possible miracle cure for paralysis sufferers

August 13, 2014 3:30PM ET

by Nicole Grether @nicolegrether

Growing up in Ohio, Ian Burkhart says the two words that best described him were active and independent.

He loved playing in the woods. By the time he was in middle school, he did his own laundry. But four years ago when he was 19, his independence vanished in a split second on a North Carolina beach.

At the end of his freshman year in college, Burkhart was vacationing with friends. He dove into a wave that pushed him down into a sandbar, breaking his neck and his C-5 and C-6 vertebrae. The young man was paralyzed over most of his body.

Before the accident, Ian Burkhart was a goalie on his high school's lacrosse team.

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“Without the use of my hands and with limited use of my arms, I do have to rely on other people for just basic things as far as getting up in the morning and getting dressed or helping prepare a meal or cut my food, even,” he said.

When the doctor overseeing his rehabilitation suggested he take part in a revolutionary experiment, Burkhart, now 23, jumped at the chance. Scientists at Battelle, a nonprofit research company based in Columbus, Ohio, had spent 10 years developing a way to translate signals from the brain and send them directly to human muscles – bypassing the spinal cord. The method is called the “neurobridge.”

“The purpose is to look at the signals in the brain as someone thinks about movement, particularly movement that they’ve lost,” said Chad Bouton, an engineer leading the research. “And we’ve actually developed methods to decipher or interpret what those signals mean.”

For Burkhart, joining the project came with a catch: He would have to volunteer for brain surgery.

“There was a lot I had to consider because I was saying, ‘Hey, sign me up for brain surgery that I don’t need,’” he said. “And you know, any surgery has those inherent risks but brain surgery is pretty invasive.”

'An incredible moment'

Ali Rezai, an Ohio State University neurosurgeon, implanted a chip about the size of a pea in the motor complex of Burkhart’s brain.

“You have to be precise,” Rezai said. “You have to be able to get the exact spot on the surface of the brain that is controlling the movements of the arms and the legs.”

The chip, containing electrodes to scan brain signals, is attached to wires that pass through a cylinder screwed in to Burkhart’s skull. They are hooked up to a powerful computer that decodes the signals, literally reading Burkhart’s mind. The computer then sends the translated command to a sleeve wrapped around Burkhart’s arm. All of this happens in the blink of an eye.

By concentrating hard, Ian Burkhart was able to clench his paralyzed hand.

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The amount of data coming through the chip is astonishing. Every three minutes, about a gigabyte of data is generated from neurons in the motor cortex, the area responsible for controlling his hand.

For months, Burkhart worked five hours a day, three days a week with the Battelle team, concentrating his thoughts to maneuver a virtual hand on a computer screen. The moment of truth came in June; after hundreds of hours manipulating a computer hand, Burkhart would try to master his own. His test: to pick up a spoon and drop it.

“We were on the edge of our seats and waiting to see if Ian could move his hand,” Bouton said. “And so, all of a sudden, we saw a little quiver in his fingers and then his hand closed. And that was just an incredible moment.”

Burkhart’s face lit up into a wide grin. The room broke into applause. For the first time, scientists had bypassed the spinal cord, allowing a paralyzed person to move his muscles with his own mind.

“I don’t have sensation in my hand, so I can’t really feel my hand extending or grasping,” Burkhart explained. “But for me to be able to see my hand open and close after four years was just a great feeling and just really gave me a lot of hope for the future.”

Pushing forward

Scientists say that the neurobridge technology holds enormous promise for treating victims of stroke and other forms of paralysis. One day, the chips in the brain could be wireless and the computer as portable as a smartphone.

For now, Burkhart can only use the neurobridge at the lab while hooked up to a computer and with the help of the technicians. He still remains paralyzed over most of his body so this isn’t a cure for Burkhart. In fact, the researchers say that his involvement is an act of altruism – a contribution to the science.

“This isn’t meant really to help him tomorrow,” said Nick Annetta, an engineer working on Neurobridge at Battelle. “When we take this system off his body when he leaves, it’s of no benefit to him. If anything, it’s a burden on him. So, it’s a truly selfless act of his to really volunteer for this.”

Burkhart takes comfort in that. He knows he may never regain the independence he lost on that North Carolina beach.

“If it gets to the point where it’s something that they perfect and it’s something people can use in their everyday life, and it can help me, I’d love that,” Burkhart said. “But really just pushing it forward to help others is the main goal that I have.”