Keith Thomas can feel a handshake again. After a spinal cord injury left him unable to move or feel his hands, a new device has given him back two abilities he thought were gone forever. Thomas, a 42-year-old man with complete tetraplegia, recently used the technology to feed himself, drink from a cup, and even hold a delicate object without crushing it. The best part? Some of his recovery stuck around even after the device was turned off.
Scientists at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York built what they call a "double neural bypass" system. It works by reading signals from Keith's brain when he thinks about moving his hand. Those signals then trigger targeted stimulation to his spinal cord and the part of his brain that handles touch. In simpler terms, the device acts like a detour around his injured spinal cord, letting his brain and hand still talk to each other.
The research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, describes how the system helped Thomas during a clinical trial. Spinal cord injuries are one of the leading causes of paralysis, and more than half of those injuries affect both arms and legs. For people with complete spinal cord injuries, like Thomas, there's typically no movement or feeling below the injury site. That makes everyday tasks most people take for granted — eating, drinking, getting dressed — nearly impossible.
After the team activated the device, Thomas could bend his elbows and bring both hands to his face. When they connected the full system, he learned to open and close his hand again. He fed himself yogurt with a spoon. He drank from a cup. He handled fragile objects without breaking them.
What surprised the researchers most was how long the benefits lasted. The system kept recognizing Thomas's intended hand movements for more than five months without needing to be retrained. Even more remarkably, he regained some touch sensitivity in his wrist that stayed with him for more than two months after the stimulation stopped. That suggests the device might actually help the nervous system heal over time, not just assist on a moment-to-moment basis.
Dr. Chad Bouton and his colleagues developed this system, and they say it could someday help restore hand movement and touch for people with severe paralysis. But they caution that much more testing is needed. Right now, the device requires trained staff to operate, and it needs to be tested on more people with different types of injuries before it could become widely available.
For Thomas, though, the gains are already real and practical. "He's getting stronger every week," the research team noted, and he continues to improve even now that the initial trial period has ended. It's a small step for one man, but a sign that the boundary between brain and body might be more flexible than we once thought.