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Paraplegic Kicks Off World Cup with Mind-Controlled Exoskeleton

The first ceremonial kick of the 2014 World Cup game was made by a paralyzed teenager, who walked onto the field clad in a robotic body suit. Led by Miguel Nicolelis, the Walk Again Project is a nonprofit, international collaboration of the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering and several other institutions. The project started with research from the Nicolelis lab using hair-thin, flexible sensors implanted into the brains of rats and monkeys. These flexible electrical prongs can detect minute electrical signals generated by hundreds of neurons throughout the animals' frontal and parietal cortices - the regions that define a vast brain circuit responsible for the generation of voluntary movements. Now, with further advancements, the kicker wore a non-invasive headpiece that detects brain waves and relays them to a computer in the exoskeleton's backpack. The paralyzed teenager was trained in Virtual Reality to control technology to kick the ball.

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    Transcript

    00:00:00 NARRATOR: Every four years, the World Cup inspires millions. A sporting spectacle loved the world over. Crowning only one nation. An epic event‚ started with a single kick. But the 2014 World Cup won't be kicked off by the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi. No, rather by a person whose body will do the impossible. Impossible‚ because they're a paraplegic. Over their Brazilian soccer jersey, a volunteer with the Walk Again project will start the World Cup with a ceremonial first kick. They will be suited with an exoskeleton that takes cues from the user's brain activity, to power his or her

    00:00:56 steps forward. Steps that could lead to a future devoid of devices like wheelchairs. Steps that lead back along a path begun nearly two decades ago with a National Science Foundation grant. Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University, and his colleagues set out to study how neurons in the cerebral cortex, the outer most layer of the brain, are involved in motor learning. The researchers first taught monkeys a behavior. For this they picked a reaching motion. For an entire year, they recorded data from 50-100 brain neurons using electrodes implanted in the part of the

    00:01:43 cortex that is involved in moving the arm and the hand. These recordings illuminated something essential. Behind the monkey's throwing motion were consistent patterns in brain activity. The same pattern each time the monkey moved its arm. With this data the team developed a brain machine interface. A system that interprets what a user wants from their brain activity, and then turns that activity into commands that can control everything from a cursor on a computer screen to the movements of a robotic arm. The team's brain machine interface could now read the monkey's brain

    00:02:29 activity in real-time and in 2000, a monkey controlled a robotic arm at Duke University. And later‚ a robotic arm 700 miles away at MIT. It's one thing to interpret a consistent brain pattern when a monkey moves its arm. But another step would take this research even further. Later, a macaque monkey wearing an updated brain machine interface used a robotic arm to grasp for virtual objects. A monumental achievement, because the monkey did so‚ without moving its own arm. The macaque simply thought about moving its arm, the brain machine interface interpreted this brain activity, and the robotic arm performed

    00:03:23 the action. Because paraplegics can't physically move their legs, this basic research will be essential for Dr. Nicolelis and the Walk Again Project's steps forward. The World Cup's exoskeleton will use an EEG cap, rather than implanted electrodes, to read brain activity. The patterns will be interpreted by computer algorithms, and the exoskeleton's hydraulic pumps will power it forward. For a moment, the world will catch just a glimpse of the potential for how this research and technology could transform lives. With every second that ticks away, fans beg and hope

    00:04:12 for that one miraculous kick to celebrate their nation. This year... the whole world will rejoice. [Crowd cheering] ♫MUSIC♫