In 2011, Gert-Jan Oskam suffered a motorbike accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. The damaged portion of his spinal cord severed the connection between his brain and his legs, preventing signals from reaching his legs to make them move. Dr. Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, explained that in cases of spinal cord injury, the brain is still sending commands to the legs, but the signals are interrupted at the site of the injury.
In 2018, Bloch made a breakthrough when she inserted a device on Oskam’s spine that could send out electrical impulses, allowing him to walk with a walker after intensive training. Although the movement was initially awkward and required pushing a button, Oskam was able to regain some control over his legs and learn to walk again. In 2023, Bloch implanted additional devices inside Oskam’s brain to create a “digital bridge” between his legs and his brain. With more training, Oskam was able to move much more naturally, gaining precise control of his joints and even climbing stairs without assistance.
Remarkably, Oskam could still walk with the device turned off, indicating that it may be helping his nervous system rebuild itself. Neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology who worked on the development of the device with Bloch, hopes that this technology will be safe and effective for wider public use within the next decade. However, he is still exploring ways to enhance it further so that paralyzed individuals can walk completely “normally.”