
Man’s paralyzed hand moves again 18 months after surgery - speg
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-mans-paralyzed-hand-moves-again-18-months-after-landmark-surgery
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rincebrain
One thing I don't entirely understand, from the article, is what happened to
the system that nerve pathway was initially intended to control.

They "hot-wired" a nerve for bending his elbow - does that mean he has a
reduced ability to bend his arm at the elbow, or is it just effectively adding
another route from that communication path?

(The reason I'm suspicious of the tradeoffs, I suppose, is that I would have
expected something like this to have been tried long ago if it had no negative
side effects.)

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kaybe
The article also didn't mention how exactly the nerve going from his elbow was
made to connect to his hand. It just says that because nerves grow 1mm/day it
takes a long time, but how do you make it do that?

And concerning your other point, his situation does look a bit special -
feeling and control in some part of the arm but not the other, so there
actually is something to reroute. I don't know how common that is, but it
doesn't sound too common.

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rincebrain
"In theory", there's nothing special about the motor nerves in your limbs, so
you could induct on something like this to transition being able to control
some muscle in your core to a limb, and so on.

I'm wondering if this isn't a less drastic version of the way patients with
limb transplants regain some degree of control over the limb when their own
nerves grow into the foreign limb.

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stephencanon
FWIW, my neurosurgeon wife says this is already a relatively routine procedure
in the US.

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mgkimsal
Holy cow that's exciting to think about!

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ape4
Public health system for the win.

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refurb
Are you sure about that? _" the Canadian-born surgeon who pioneered the
technique in St. Louis, Mo."_

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parshimers
That dog closing the door for him with the tug rope!

