USIAS Annual Symposium 2018: Enabling the Disabled - Technological Reality and the Societal Perspective
The 2018 Annual Symposium will feature the eminent neurosurgeon Alim-Louis Benabid, a pioneer of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and, more recently, of the development of an exoskeleton that is controlled by capturing brain signals, enabling paralysed persons to walk again.
Improving the quality of life of quadriplegics is an enormous challenge, and sophisticated and efficient neuroprostheses hold the key to this, compensating for sensorimotor deficits and allowing increased social integration. In his lecture, Professor Benabid will explain how he and his team designed and crafted a robotised exoskeleton that is operated via a brain-machine interface at the level of the sensorimotor cortex.
The decoding of electrocorticographic (ECoG) data helps to produce advanced models of motor skills for all four limbs. A first patient has received an implant 15 months ago. He has since mastered eleven degrees of freedom, and keeps practising so as to increase the quality and the precision of responses, and also to simultaneously manage different tasks. The objective now is to achieve integration and functionality in domestic, urban and professional settings. The scientific challenge has been met; the social challenge must now be addressed.
