Miracles do happen

Thousands of people every year suffer spinal cord injuries and lose their ability to walk. An brain-controlled exoskeleton that moves a patient’s legs could be one way to get some patients out of wheelchairs.

A multinational consortium led by Belgian company Space Applications Services has designed the Mindwalker, which is a frame — the exoskeleton — that attaches to the torso and legs and moves them as the wearer thinks about it.

Unlike a bionic limb, the exoskeleton doesn’t need to be linked with electrodes inside the body. Instead, it uses a simple cap that reads electrical signals from the brain. When the wearer thinks of moving, a certain pattern appears, which is interpreted by a computer as a signal to move.

The Mindwalker design uses a “dry” cap, which doesn’t need special gels to boost electrical conductivity, so it is much more convenient to use than “wet” caps often used to study brain activity.

source @ http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/mindwalk-paralyzed-patients-walk-130308.htm