Gregoire Courtine: Novel Spinal Cord Repair Strategies
© 2010 EPFL
Grégoire Richard Courtine has been awarded a STARTING GRANT 2010 from the European Research Council (ERC) at the University of Zurich. After his appointment as Associate Professor at the School of Life Sciences at EPFL, the ERC grant has been transferred to EPFL.
Multi-pronged Strategies to Regain Voluntary Motor Functions after Spinal Cord Injury
Severe spinal cord injury (SCI) permanently abolishes motor functions caudal to the lesion. Various strategies have been pursued to promote functional recovery after such injuries. However, none of these attempts were able to return voluntary movements in paralyzed subjects. Here, we propose an innovative transdisciplinary research program including parallel approaches that will converge into an integrated multi-pronged therapy able to restore voluntary movements after paralyzing SCI. To achieve this goal, we will capitalize on our recent breakthroughs that demonstrate the impressive capacity of pharmacological and electrical spinal cord stimulations to promote full weight bearing walking in paralyzed rats when combined with rehabilitation. In Walk Again, we will improve high level control of spinal circuits with synergistic combinations of pharmacological agents, and with the design of multisite stimulation strategies using electrode arrays. Functional electrical stimulation of muscles will provide complementary low level tuning capacities to adjust limb motion. To allow voluntary control, we will establish a new line of research and pioneer brain-spinal interfaces by which cortical modulations will directly adjust stimulations of spinal circuits and muscles. In the final stages, we will enable neurorehabilitation with this cortico-spinal neuroprosthesis in the presence of anti-NogoA regenerative therapy. The underlying objective is to devise a fully-operative neuroprosthetic system that will enable self-driven rehabilitation in a permissive plastic environment. Walk Again will fertilize frontier research with pioneer ideas that will increase European competitiveness while paving the way toward viable clinical applications to restore function in paralyzed individuals.
Max ERC funding: 1.4 million Euros
Duration: 60 months
Host institution: EPFL
Project acronym: WALK AGAIN
Domain: Life sciences