A Cleveland research team is betting that a new round of experiments could help some people with quadriplegia feel touch again. The scientists plan to put several ways of delivering artificial sensation head to head, using volunteers who are already part of a long-running local clinical trial.
The project is backed by a $3.1 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, according to Case Western Reserve University News. Lead investigator Emily Graczyk, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, says that losing sensation after a spinal cord injury strips away not just function, but also the emotional connection that comes with touch.
How the trial will test artificial touch
Researchers will directly compare three strategies: stimulating the brain's somatosensory cortex, stimulating peripheral nerves in the arm, and a hybrid approach that uses both at once. The study is designed to provide real-time sensory feedback to neuroprostheses and to test whether combined stimulation can encourage neuroplastic recovery below the level of injury, as reported by Cleveland.com.
Who will take part
The team will work with people who have quadriplegia and are already enrolled in the Reconnecting the Hand and Arm to the Brain (ReHAB) clinical trial, all of whom have permanently implanted electrode arrays and nerve cuffs. The ReHAB listing on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04430218) identifies Dr. Graczyk as an investigator and describes the implanted neural interfaces the group uses.
Why sensation matters
Patients who have tried sensory feedback in earlier work report deep emotional and psychological effects. Everyday actions such as holding a hand or feeling fabric again take on outsized meaning when sensation has been missing for years. The new effort builds on brain-computer interface and neuroprosthetics research led by Abidemi Bolu Ajiboye and colleagues, a program that University Hospitals says is aimed at pairing restored movement with restored sensation to improve daily function.
What comes next
Over the coming months, researchers will map out which stimulation patterns create the clearest and most useful sensations, and whether those patterns improve reach-and-grasp performance when plugged into neuroprosthetic systems. Case Western Reserve says the findings should guide how sensory feedback is built into future devices and help shape larger clinical trials.
The project adds to a cluster of neurorehabilitation work in Cleveland that links Case Western Reserve, University Hospitals, the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center and the Cleveland FES Center, an ecosystem that researchers hope will turn lab advances into therapies patients can actually use. If the NICHD-funded trial identifies reliable sensory strategies, device makers and clinicians could use those patterns to make brain-controlled systems and prosthetics feel more natural for people living with paralysis.
