Feinstein Institutes' 'Double Neural Bypass' Restores Movement and Touch in Complete Paralysis, Featured on Nature Medicine Cover

Summary

A three-year study led by Chad Bouton at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, featured on the cover of Nature Medicine, showed that a hybrid brain-computer interface combining implanted electrodes with AI decoding and electrical stimulation of the spinal cord and brain restored hand function in a man with complete tetraplegia. Over 35 weeks, participant Keith Thomas gained 86% and 62% strength in his right and left arms respectively, improvements that persisted for months after stimulation stopped. A technique the team calls cortical mirroring, which replays recorded patterns of imagined touch back through the sensory cortex, restored feeling in a previously numb area of his wrist after roughly 25 weeks; a follow-up more than two years later found the gains still present. Five microelectrode arrays implanted across motor and sensory cortex support the system, whose movement-intent decoder held steady at 84.6% accuracy across five months with no need to recalibrate.