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A 24-year-old quadriplegic man has become the first person to successfully regain movement in a part of of the body through the use of technology, new findings published in Nature revealed Wednesday. Ian Burkhart had a microchip implanted in his brain two years ago that allows the “reanimation” of his right hand, wrist, and fingers when he is connected to equipment in a lab. Ever since the Ohio resident received the implant, researchers have studied how his brain interacts with the technology. “It gives us a lot of hope that there are perhaps not as many neural changes in the brain as we might have imagined after an injury like this, and we can bypass damaged areas of the spinal cord to regain movement,” said Chad Bouton, a researcher at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York.
