Paralysed man walks using only his brain power

An American man paralysed in a motorcycle accident has become the first person in the world to walk using only the power of his brain.

Adam Fritz, 28, was able to accomplish the remarkable feat by transmitting signals from his brain to electrodes placed around his knees, Reuters reports.

Mr Fritz, who was paralysed five years ago, walked 3.6m with the help of a harness to hold him up, a walking frame and most significantly without the assistance of manually operated robotic limbs.

The "neural bypass" procedure sends signals from the brain directly to the electrodes in the knees, bypassing the spinal cord.

Dr An Do, who led the research study conducted by the University of California at Irvine, said that "even after years of paralysis the brain can still generate robust brain waves" that can be harnessed to enable basic walking.

"We showed that you can restore intuitive, brain-controlled walking after a complete spinal cord injury. This non-invasive system for leg muscle stimulation is a promising method and is an advance of our current brain-controlled systems that use virtual reality or a robotic exoskeleton," Dr Do said.

While the research is ground-breaking further study is required to determine whether the procedure can be used to allow paraplegics to achieve a practical level of walking.