- There's a lot that goes through your head
when you're told that now you're not gonna
be able to do anything for yourself.
It was our first day on vacation,
I'm diving into a wave, I hit my head,
everything went numb.
Everything became extremely serious
when I first met with the doctors
that said you broke your spinal cord,
you're never gonna be able to walk again,
and this is how it's gonna be
for the rest of your life.
It really just felt like I had my whole life
ripped away from me,
but I'm not gonna let this define my life.
- Spinal cord injuries are pretty much permanent.
- But why accept these limits?
Maybe we can come up with an artificial interface.
- So we looked at this as an important problem
to reanimate the limb of a quadriplegic.
- 100 years ago the thought of someone
leaving the planet and going into space was crazy.
When I broke my neck,
the thought of me using a computer
to regain use of my body was crazy,
but now that's exactly what I'm doing.
My name's Ian Burkhart, I'm 26 years old
and I'm an accounting student.
Alexa, turn on the lights.
- Okay.
- Before my injury, I was very independent.
I had just finished my freshman year of college.
First time living on my own
and doing everything everyone else was doing.
But that all came to a change
on June 13th of 2010.
- I remember distinctly it was a Sunday evening,
and I got a phone call about 11 PM,
you know, he said your son had a diving accident
and he broke his spinal cord,
and we think he's gonna live, but he'll never walk again.
- The first time I saw him,
it really kind of sums up how he is,
because he looked at me and he said,
Mom, life isn't over, it's just different.
- Maybe I'll be in a wheelchair for the rest
of my life, but I'm not gonna be the guy in the wheelchair,
I'm gonna be Ian.
So with my level of spinal cord,
I can move my arms around pretty well,
but I can't move any of my actual individual joints
or fingers on my hand.
About two years after I had my injury,
I kept asking my doctors what can I look forward to,
what's the future gonna be like?
I was fortunate enough to be in the right place
at the right time, when they were looking
for patients for this study.
- In a spinal cord injury,
the communication between the brain and the body
has been damaged, so our idea was to create a bridge
around that damaged spinal cord,
so that we could regain control in a limb
that was paralyzed.
You've got sort of a similar pinch for another grip
that's gonna show a similar pattern.
- Exactly.
- The system works by allowing the stimulation sleeve
to electrically shock your muscles
to make them contract and move.
- We put the electrodes on and we use
pre-programmed stimulation to evoke motions
in the hand, wrist and fingers
that we would plan to use with the full system.
If we're successful, then we enroll them
into the full study.
- And then came that million dollar questions.
- Would you like to be able to control
the stimulation device with your thoughts?
- The basic three components of the NeuroLife system
is the chip in the brain and the ability
to collect that data,
the computer that takes those signals
decodes the intent, and then re-encodes
those to deliver those to the third part of the system,
which is the stimulation system
that actually evokes the muscle motions.
- The surgical aspect of the study is something
that I was a little worried about.
It was an unneeded surgery,
and there's a lot of risks with any type of surgery,
let alone a brain surgery.
- Sort of the range of bad things that can happen
are having a stroke, getting pneumonia,
not being able to see or hear.
There's always the risk of death with the surgery.
- I knew that if I was able to regain
any function in my hand,
it was worth taking that risk of the surgery
and potentially losing everything.
But if this is something that I could do,
it would really impact my life in a great way
and be able to impact other peoples' lives in the future.
So I was all in.
- We are ready.
- Ian puts himself at risk.
Why do you want to go in for two brain surgeries
that you don't need?
One to put the chip in, and another one to take it out?
And the answer was,
that he wants to take advantage of his situation.
He views it as an opportunity to advance the science
and advance the field of rehabilitation medicine.
- The first day where we were able to take
all the parts of the system and connect them together
to see if this would work
was something extremely exciting,
but also nerve wracking at the same time,
because no one knew for sure
until we were able to connect everything together
and for me to actually think about opening
and closing my hands.
- Good?
What do you think?
(clapping)
- That first movement was amazing.
It's almost something there are no words for,
because factually speaking this is not something
that Ian should be able to do.
This should be something biologically
that is impossible.
- This is the first time that the limb
of a quadriplegic has been reanimated
using a brain-computer interface
to regain fine motor control.
- After we were able to get
that initial movement of my hand,
we really went to the drawing board and said,
okay now what all can we do with it?
- [Reporter] Playing a guitar video game
seems simple enough,
but for Ian Burkhart, it's a major step forward.
- So we've been doing sessions now
for the last three and a half years.
I definitely take it as a job.
I enjoy it it, but it's work.
- If you think about all the things
that Ian risked by having the surgery,
it's really just staggering.
He's a pioneer.
We're all inspired by him.
- A huge motivating factor for me to be involved
with the study was other people.
It gave me that huge light at the end of the tunnel,
because it allows you to change the world for other people.