The Walk Again Project: Moving imagination to make wheelchairs obsolete

A paralyzed teenager wearing an exoskeleton will kick the first ball at the 2014 FIFA World Cup tomorrow in São Paulo, Brazil. He will walk onto the field, pull back a foot, and take a shot on goal using the mechanical exoskeleton controlled by his brain.

Miguel Nicolelis, professor of neurobiology, biomedical engineering, and psychology and neuroscience at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, US, leads the Walk Again Project. Nicolelis was quoted in the Washington Post as saying the group wanted to galvanize people’s imaginations — and with enough political will and investment, they could make wheelchairs obsolete.

The nonprofit, international project involves several collaborators, including: the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering; the Technical University of Munich in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland; the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal in Brazil; the University of California, Davis, US; the University of Kentucky, US; and Regis Kopper, director of the Duke immersive Virtual Environment.

To learn more about the Walk Again Project, watch a video narrated by Nicolelis.

You can learn more about Nicolelis inSusan Gaidos’article:Building Up Brazilian Brain Research

- Amber Harmon