The team from EPFL and Lausanne University Hospital revealed that the stimulation in the lateral hypothalamus part of the brain has helped the participant with spinal injury regain movement.
Spinal cord injury disconnects communication pathway between the brain and neurons in the lumbar spinal cord, causing paralysis and motor function impairment.
For the Nature Medicine study, the researchers first tested the theory in mice to "establish the precise circuits involved in the recovery". They mapped the brain activity of mice with spinal injury.
Later, a pilot clinical study was conducted to evaluate the impact of deep brain stimulation therapy of the lateral hypothalamus in two human patients.
"Once the electrode was in place and we performed the stimulation, the first patient immediately said, 'I feel my legs.' When we increased the stimulation, she said, 'I feel the urge to walk!'" said study co-leader Jocelyne Bloch.
"This real-time feedback confirmed we had targeted the correct region, even if this region had never been associated with the control of the legs in humans," she continued. "At this moment, I knew that we were witnessing an important discovery for the anatomical organization of brain functions."
In both patients, the researchers noted an improvement in their lower body movement and walking performance during 10-meter and six-minute walking tests. Also, no serious adverse events were reported during the study.
"This research demonstrates that the brain is needed to recover from paralysis," said co-leader Gregoire Coutineco.
"Surprisingly, the brain is not able to take full advantage of the neuronal projections that survive after a spinal cord injury. Here, we found how to tap into a small region of the brain that was not known to be involved in the production of walking in order to engage these residual connections and augment neurological recovery in people with spinal cord injury."
Based on the positive results, the researchers will now focus on integrating deep brain stimulation with other technologies.
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