Key Takeaways
A brain wave decoder is figuring out how people think about moving
The decoder interprets brain waves generated by people thinking of movement
Through the decoder, those thoughts prompted lower leg movement using spinal cord stimulation
MONDAY, May 20, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A brain wave decoder shows promise in using electrical stimulation to the spine to cue leg movement, researchers say.
The decoder could one day help restore mobility in people with spinal cord injuries.
Tests in 17 people without a spinal cord injury showed that the decoder could cue movement in their lower legs using spinal cord stimulation, researchers reported in the Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation.
Participants wore a special cap fitted with electrodes that measured their brain activity, and were asked to either extend their leg at the knee or only think about the motion.
The recorded brain waves were then fed into the decoder so it could learn how people’s brains responded in both circumstances, researchers said.
As it happens, the actual and imagined movements used similar brain waves, researchers found.
“After we give the decoder this data, it learns to predict based on neural activity whenever there is movement or no movement,” senior researcher Ismael Seáñez, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a news release.
“We show that we can predict whenever someone is thinking about moving their leg, even if their leg does not actually move,” Seáñez said.
Using those brain waves, people were able to move their lower leg by just thinking about it, with an external electrode stimulating their spinal cord into producing the movement, researchers reported.
The study is a first step toward developing a brain-spine interface that uses real-time brain waves and spinal cord stimulation to promote movement in people with a spinal cord injury, researchers said.
The team next plans to see if these brain waves can be generalized. If so, a universal decoder could be implemented to help restore movement, rather than having to teach the device based on each person’s brain waves.
More information
The National Institutes of Health has more on spinal cord injury.
SOURCE: Washington University in St. Louis, news release, May 2, 2025
What This Means For You
Brain/spine interfaces could one day help restore movement in spinal cord injury patients.
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