We may actually have triggered a plastic reorganization in the cortex by re-inserting a representation of lower limbs and locomotion in the cortex, these patients may have been able to transmit some of this information from the cortex through the spinal cord, through these very few nerves that may have survived the original trauma. It’s almost like we turned them on again.

Miguel Nicolelis

Categorized in : Health News

Impossible is just the possible that someone has not put enough effort to make it come true.

Miguel Nicolelis

effort enough impossible

You could have all the computer chips ever in the world and you won’t create a consciousness.

Miguel Nicolelis

computer consciousness world

We basically created a computational unit out of two brains.

Miguel Nicolelis

units brain two

Interesting enough, at that point, they started reporting that they had a very different experience— [they were] feeling the tactile feedback, even in virtual reality, telling them, ‘I know I’m upright and standing, but it feels like my legs are moving,’.

Miguel Nicolelis

health

What we didn't expect and what we observed is that some of these patients regained voluntary control of muscles in the legs below the level of the lesion and regained sensitivity below the level of the spinal cord injury.

Miguel Nicolelis

health-news

We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a brain-net. In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.

Miguel Nicolelis

predict animals you achieve

Eventually, brain implants will become as common as heart implants. I have no doubt about that.

Miguel Nicolelis

will doubt brain heart

With its billions of interconnected neurons, whose interactions change from millisecond to millisecond, the human brain is an archetypal complex system.

Miguel Nicolelis

human interconnected change brain

We have about 100 million cells interconnected in our brains. They communicate with one another through electrical signals.

Miguel Nicolelis

our through electrical interconnected

Essentially, all expressions of human nature ever produced, from a caveman's paintings to Mozart's symphonies and Einstein's view of the universe, emerge from the same source: the relentless dynamic toil of large populations of interconnected neurons.

Miguel Nicolelis

view human-nature universe nature

The brain needs to have a story; it needs to have a logical screenplay telling where we're coming from and what we're going to.

Miguel Nicolelis

coming going story brain

There are several patients - there are thousands of patients, tens of thousands of patients, that carry either a stimulator in the brain or in the periphery, in the inner ear, to restore neurological functions or to control diseases like Parkinson's disease.

Miguel Nicolelis

control like disease brain

The kind of neuroscience that I do and my colleagues do is almost like the weatherman. We are always chasing storms. We want to see and measure storms - brainstorms, that is.

Miguel Nicolelis

see always colleagues want

It's not telepathy. It's not the Borg. But we created a new central nervous system made of two brains.

Miguel Nicolelis

new nervous-system nervous two

It's the first time an exoskeleton has been controlled by brain activity and offered feedback to the patients. Doing a demonstration in a stadium is something very much outside our routine in robotics. It's never been done before.

Miguel Nicolelis

doing never brain time

We want kids to think that they can think about science. They don't need to just play soccer.

Miguel Nicolelis

think want play science

I think the word 'soul' - it depends on what you define by 'soul.' If you're defining it as a mystical aura that is outside the body, I cannot measure that. If you're talking about soul as human nature, the rank of spectrum of behaviors and reactions that we know humans produce under certain circumstances, that is measurable.

Miguel Nicolelis

think you nature soul

We want to galvanize people's imaginations. With enough political will and investment, we could make wheelchairs obsolete.

Miguel Nicolelis

will political enough people

I have no military application in my research. You know, we are all involved into rehabilitation medicine.

Miguel Nicolelis

know you medicine research

A lot of people thought the sense of self was hard-wired, but it's not at all. It can be changed very quickly, and that's very intriguing.

Miguel Nicolelis

sense thought self people