VIENNA: Austrian technicians are using a system of thought transference to enable a paralyzed man to lift his hand and drink from a glass, achieving a medical first.

Thanks to a “brain-computer interface” developed by a research team in Graz, 27-year-old Thomas Schweiger had been able to perform the simple, but for him previously impossible, actions for the first time since he was paralyzed from the neck down in a swimming accident in Malta in 1998.

Head of Graz University’s institute for electronic and biomedical technology, Gert Pfurtscheller, quoted in newspapers on Wednesday, said that mental images formed by the patient caused tiny but measurable changes in brain activity.

They were registered by the time-honoured method of an electroencephalogram (EEG). Each mental image, such as clutching an object or raising a hand, caused a distinct EEG pattern of minute electrical currents.

The currents were amplified via the brain-computer interface, and transformed into binary steering signals. Then, surface electrodes attached to the patient’s left forearm stimulated the hand muscles and started the required gripping or relaxing motion.

Pfurtscheller emphasized that the patient had to clearly picture in his mind each action, whether opening or closing the hand, or lifting the arm.

For daily use, a switch had been attached to his wheelchair which he could activate with a slight movement remaining to him of his left arm. “This is only the beginning. It’s realistic that in a few years’ time, electrodes will be implanted in the head”, the researcher said.

Pfurtscheller spoke of the “iron will” of his patient, and the months of training he had needed before his mental images could steer his hand.

“Thomas thinks of a movement, if he wants to open or close his hand. He can now eat a slice of bread, or drink a beer.” For other paralyzed patients so far also dependent on others feeding them, the new method could mean an immeasurable improvement in their quality of life.

The reports said that Thomas Schweiger had otherwise struggled through to a positive role in life since his disastrous accident. He was a geography student whose parents drove him twice a week from his home at Passail to Graz.—dpa