Paralyzed Man Regains Hand Function After Breakthrough Nerve Rewiring Procedure 56
An anonymous reader writes "A 71-year-old man who became paralyzed from the waist down and lost all use of both hands in a 2008 car accident has regained motor function in his fingers after doctors rewired his nerves to bypass the damaged ones in a pioneering surgical procedure, according to a case study published on Tuesday."
Fact is becoming better than fiction (Score:5, Interesting)
Between this, the latest reports of restoring sigh with implantable photo voltaic chips and engineered nano particle drug delivery, medical science fiction is running out of subjects that are still fiction. Kurzweil's Singularity is looking more and more likely every day.
In the words of Glenn Reynolds ...... FASTER, PLEASE!!
I had these nerve rewirings in 1998 too... (Score:5, Interesting)
Reposted and updated from http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8937&cid=613380 [slashdot.org] ...
When I had my cranial surgery (due to my locked jaw -- had to open my jaw -- it was so bad that I couldn't stick my tongue out), the doctors had to break some nerves to fix this (from my neck and right side of my head near the ear area).
After the complex surgery, the right side of my face were unresponsive (i.e. couldn't move and feel). That included my right eye where I couldn't move my eye lids (not even close fully).
After about two months, I went to another surgery to fix these damaged facial nerves. The doctors fixed this by connecting working nerves to the damaged ones. Basically, they were rerouting these signals as if you were rerouting a network.
Some of my broken nerves are currently recovered, but it will take years to recovered almost fully (not 100%).
You can read more old details from http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/surgery/surgery.html [zimage.com] ...
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5/15/2012: Nope, they never recovered fully. I still can't close my right eye lid fully and can feel a little more, but still can't move fully. The feelings still funky in other areas on my head/face/neck. Heh!
I wonder how much has improved from 1998 if I had that nerve reconstruction in 2010s.
Re:Qaelia sensory mapping (Score:5, Interesting)
It becomes abstract and automated. Sortof like how your brain can flip your vision if you wear inverting glasses for prolonged timeperiods.
Re:I'm not a doctor (Score:3, Interesting)
That's good chin-rubbing reasoning. Should it rule the day, though?
How many people would die because drugs and procedures got onto the market too fast?
Compare that to how many die because good drugs get delayed by a year or two or five or ten.
I wouldn't be so quick to jump on the FDA-saves-lives bandwagon. They could turn out to be one of the biggest mass-murders, net, in all history.