Bypassing paralyzed nerves

It’s a case of mind over muscle, by way of machine. By electronically connecting a monkey’s forearm muscles to its brain, researchers gave a temporarily paralyzed monkey the ability to clench those muscles.

An electrode implanted in the monkey’s brain picked up the electrical signal from a single neuron, and the monkey learned to control the activity of that neuron to regain control of its wrist — even if the neuron was in a sensory rather than a muscle-controlling region of the brain.