Researchers from Houston Methodist and the University of Cambridge have developed a flexible device that wraps around the spinal cord and can simultaneously interpret multiple signals related to movement, sensation and internal body functions. The research demonstrates that a single device may be capable of restoring lost functions after spinal cord injury.
More than 2.5 million people worldwide live with spinal cord injuries. However, therapies to date have largely focused on restoring a single function, such as movement, sensation or autonomic control – until now.
Published in Nature Communications, the study was co-led by Damiano Barone, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Neurosurgery in the Department of Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist and George Malliaras, Ph.D., the Prince Professor of Technology in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge.
"Most current technologies try to improve whatever function remains after a spinal cord injury," Barone said. "Our goal is different. Rather than fixing the injury itself, we want to bypass it completely and create an alternative route for signals to travel."
In preclinical studies, researchers showed the device could accurately detect signals related to intended movement and classify multiple types of sensory information. The technology also distinguished signals originating from internal organs. Additional testing demonstrated that the approach can work in larger anatomy, an important step toward future clinical translation.
"This could represent a paradigm change in how we think about spinal cord injuries," Malliaras said. "Instead of starting from the idea that what is lost is gone forever, this approach asks whether we can restore function by carrying the signal around the injury."
Future work will focus on restoring function in lab models with chronic spinal cord injuries before advancing the technology toward human clinical trials.
Researchers believe the technology could serve as the foundation for next-generation neuroprosthetics—devices that connect directly to the nervous system to bypass or replace lost sensory, motor or cognitive functions.
Other collaborators on the study included Salim Hadwe, Ruben Serrano, George Psaltakis, Margaux Forner, Chaeyeon Lee, Sydney Swedick, Moleca Ghnnam, Tawfique Hasan and Alejandro Carnicer-Lombarte from the University of Cambridge; and Anton Banta and Xueer Zhang from Houston Methodist.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Houston Methodist Katz Investigator Award, Helaers Research Award and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant.
