Man Paralyzed From Neck Down Controls Robotic Arm With His Thoughts

NORTH HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — Brain electrodes developed at Caltech and implanted at the Keck Medicine of USC are allowing a Southern California man to control a robotic arm using only his thoughts.

Drinking a beverage for the first time in years without having someone else hold it for Eric Sorto was an unforgettable moment for him.

"That was amazing. I was waiting for that for 13 years to drink a beer by myself," said Sorto, who was paralyzed from the neck down by a gunshot when he was 21.

Two years ago, he underwent groundbreaking experimental brain surgery at Keck-USC.

"We really consider Eric very much a partner in this exploration," said Brain Surgeon Charles Liu, who placed two implants or neural prosthetics into Eric's brain.

"They each have 96 tiny little electrodes on them," said Richard Anderson, the neuroscientist at Caltech who developed the electrodes.

The electrodes are designed to register Sorto's brain activity and send that to a computer connected to a robotic arm.

"What the patient does is imagine a movement, and we can then decode what he's imagining," Anderson said.

The technology allows a robotic arm to be controlled by the part of the brain that sets goals, rather than the part that simply controls movements.

"I close my eyes, just like this, and I start imagining the robotic arm and what I want it to do," Sorto said.

"I want to reach for a glass of water rather than how do I move my particular joints and muscles to get to that glass," Anderson said.

"To see him actually drink the beverage with the robot arm with just his thoughts. Very, very amazing," Liu said.