‘Artificial Nerve’ Helps Human Who Lost Use of Right Hand to Write Again

An Austrian human with a permanent neck condition called Transverse Myelitis has regained the use of his right hand through using an experimental surgical tool called an “artificial nerve.”

Dominik Hein, 28, was diagnosed with the chronic paralyzing disease when he was five years old. By the time he turned 12, the disease had paralyzed his right hand.

But in April 2015, Hein was able to undergo a three-week surgical procedure at Gritswangen University Hospital’s Neurointensive Care Center that permanently relocated a ligament in his right shoulder, restoring the use of his right hand.

In the procedure, a surgeon fused a ligament at the base of Hein’s nerve, connecting the lower part of the nerve to the base of the spinal cord. When the nerve connects to the patient’s nervous system, it gives commands to four cells on the back of the hand, the handstem cells.

At first, Hein was not able to write, but soon was able to write a few words after using a specially developed computer program.

Hein then went to Norway to recover further before returning to Gritswangen, where he has been training doctors to perform the same surgery for other patients. “This will be a new approach to treating this serious neurological disease,” Andreas Weikel, coordinator of the Neuroplasticity Center at Gritswangen University Hospital, told people.

Transverse Myelitis affects the spinal cord, causing the nervous system to go into overdrive. The disease affects the spinal cord and can also damage nerves in the nerves that control the movements in the hand. Because of this, patients may have difficulty in controlling a hand to write with, as they have paralyzed part of the nerve. In people with Transverse Myelitis, the nerves that control the hand stem from the shoulders. This may explain why patients found it very hard to write before the nerve transplant.

Now that the nerve is attached to the spinal cord, a machine called a computerized language translator lets Hein type letters like “y” and “e” using his brain. When using the computer to type, the patient first has to tell the computer what letters to write in front of him. The patient then writes “for” first, which means the letter “y.” Then the computer will write “e,” and the patient will write “y.” This program has a majority success rate, as it takes up to 10 to 15 minutes for the patient to write a letter with each input.

In the future, a communication system might be developed that would teach people how to type in different words by asking them to do exercises in the room.

After learning a new language, it might be possible for a human with Transverse Myelitis to communicate with others using cognitive words, as a starting point. I hope that once the surgery is more standardized, patients will be able to write with their left hand.

We can restore the right hand to its former capabilities after this [nerve transplant], but if that happens, we will have to modify the general direction the left hand is moving towards with that person.