As many of you know I live with a damaged spinal cord manifesting externally as a crippled right arm.
Well I have been accepted into a clinical trial at the Kessler Foundation. The goal of the study is to investigate whether or not an exoskeleton type device for the arm can stimulate the growth of new or strengthen the function of any intact neural pathways.
The first step was to do mapping of my brain. I was plugged into mapping software using this cap and it recorded activity as I tried to move my hand, fingers , elbow and shoulder.
The second step was to externally stimulate any "hot spots" in my brain using a type of targeted magnetic pulse. That was relatively unpleasant BUT they identified a viable neural pathway. Every time they shot a pulse into a specific spot my arm jumped.
So, now I go into a standard PT program in order to get my arm and hand into a lesser state of atrophy and spasticity. Who knows what will happen but any gain in function is HUGE.
Science is cool.