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A man who became paralyzed from the neck down after a diving accident six years ago has now regained the ability to feel and grasp objects thanks to an experimental brain implant.
The breakthrough, described in the journal Nature Medicine on July 16, marks a significant step forward for brain-computer interface technology. Keith Thomas, 48, has maintained the ability to both perceive touch and grasp objects months after the system was switched off. This suggests the technology may have rewired his nervous system by promoting neuroplasticity.
“We turned everything off completely, for many months, and yet he’s maintained these gains,” says study co-author Chad Bouton, a neuroscientist at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York, to Christa Lesté-Lasserre at New Scientist. “That’s unheard of.”
In 2023, Thomas received a double neural bypass surgery as part of a clinical trial. Bouton and his colleagues placed five electrode arrays, which measure and deliver electric currents, in his brain’s motor and sensory cortexes. The team also placed stimulation patches on top of his spinal cord and forearm.
When Thomas tried to move his hand or arm, the implanted electrodes detected the corresponding brain activity, which was decoded by a machine learning algorithm and converted into electrical signals that stimulated his intended movements. At the same time, pressure sensors built into a custom 3D-printed orthotic measured pressure during grasping and triggered electrical stimulation patterns in the brain’s sensory cortex, creating the feeling of touch.
Overall, the algorithm interpreted his brain signals with 85 percent accuracy. After 35 weeks with the system, the strength increased by 86 percent in his right arm and 62 percent in his left.
“[The study] changed my life dramatically,” Thomas tells O. Rose Broderick at STAT. “I’m able to pet my dog, I’m able to do other things, like sometimes feed myself, wipe my face, wipe my mouth.”
The team also developed a “cortical mirroring” technique to recreate the sense of feeling in his hands. The researchers first recorded Thomas’ brain activity when he imagined being touched, and then they recreated those brain signals using electrical stimulation of his sensory cortex while simultaneously stimulating the spinal cord and skin.
After about 25 weeks of this therapy, focused on his right wrist, Thomas regained the ability to feel touch in an area that was previously completely numb. He could grab and lift hollow eggshells without breaking them 87 percent of the time, even when blindfolded.
Perhaps most remarkably, the progress has remained. “In a recent follow up, it was found these gains were still present after more than two years,” says Bouton in a statement. “This is incredibly encouraging.”
While the findings offer hope for the millions of people around the world living with spinal cord injury, experts say it’s unclear how they would be replicated in other subjects. Thomas is just one person, and the procedure’s complexity makes it hard to untangle what is responsible for which effect, says John Downey, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago who wasn’t involved in the study, to STAT.
David McGonigle, a neuroscientist at Cardiff University who wasn’t involved in the work, tells Michael Peel at the Financial Times that the study was “a step towards future work, rather than an end in itself.” However, he adds that the suggestions of nervous system adaptation were “intriguing,” although not yet proven, and the reported motor improvements were “particularly impressive.”
“That’s where the real worth of the study lies, with the participant now able to perform meaningful everyday tasks such as feeding himself and manipulating delicate objects,” McGonigle says.
This article was originally published on Smithsonian Magazine. Read the full story here: A Man With Paralysis Has Regained Feeling and Movement in His Hands After an Experimental Brain Implant © 2026 Smithsonian Institution.
