Electrical stimulation in spine helps paraplegic man stand

For the first time, a man completely paralyzed from the chest down regained the ability to take several steps with support and stand on his own thanks to electric stimulation to his spinal cord, new research published in the Lancet shows. Rob Summers, 25, was paralyzed in 2006 after being hit by a car that jumped the curb. After undergoing intensive motion training, an electrical pulse generator that mimics the brain's signals for movement was implanted in his back and Summers was able to regain some voluntary motion during stimulation sessions that lasted up to two hours. It was the first time electric stimulation produced this result in a human, though previous tests on animals showed similar results.