He can feel his dog's fur again after paralysis

Keith Thomas can scratch his nose again. For a man paralyzed from the chest down since 2020, that counts as an event. Thomas, from Massapequa, broke his neck diving into a pool during the summer of 2020. Three months later, the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research asked if he wanted to enroll in a three-year trial of what they call double neural bypass surgery. Electrodes implanted in his brain detect when he wants to move. Sensors in his fingers read what he is holding, then send that back up. He can now feel his dog's fur and adjust his grip for a ball or an egg. After 35 weeks of training, strength in his right arm has climbed 86 percent. The gains persist even when the computer is switched off. "For me this is an incredible moment," said Professor Chad Bouton, who led the team. The findings were published in Nature. Nobody knows how far he'll get.