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| File Name      : LIVEWIRE.ASC   |  Online Date   :  07/04/96       |

| Contributed by : Jerry Decker   |  Dir Category  :  BIOLOGY        |

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|         InterNet email jdecker@keelynet.com   (Jerry Decker)       |

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A few months back, at one of our local Roundtable meetings, I was

talking with a couple of fellows, Al Holman and Ed Wade.  I don't

recall how we got on the subject, but Ed said when he was going to

graduate school, they used to take live scorpions, insert fine wires

at the base of their neck, into the spinal cord, and connect the wires

to an audio tape recorder.  They would then let the scorpion walk

around, sometimes teasing it to get a more complex set of responses.



The electrical signals coursing through the spinal cord would be

recorded on the recorder.  The scorpion would then be subjected to a

toxic gas to kill it without doing damage to the body, all the while

leaving the wires inserted in its neck.



Ed said once the scorpion was dead, they would play back the tape and

the scorpion would walk around, recreating all the recorded actions.

The cool thing was you could play the tape backward and the scorpion

would move backward, arching its tail and all.



This could be done several times before the conductivity of the tissue

started to decay and the organism would no longer respond.  Ed said

this process only works with simpler organisms.



Kind of reminiscent of Steven Kings' 'Pet Sematary', eh?  But it did

remind me of experiments being done on paraplegics where atrophied or

non-responding muscle tissue were being stimulated by electronic pads

located in specific orders.  The computer sees the muscle groups as

line printer characters being driven through the parallel port.



Further details regarding controlled muscle pattern stimulation using

implanted wires are in the following article.

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From Computerworld - June 6, 1994



System lets paralysis, stroke patients stand tall



Six years ago, Dan Kemp's future looked extremely bright.  Then a 29-

year-old private first class in the US Army, Kemp was two weeks shy of

graduating at the top of his advanced telecommunications class and

awaiting his next set of orders.



But Kemp's life took a sudden and drastic turn one night in May 1988.

Returning to Fort Gordon, Ga., with a few of his comrades after

spending a night offbase, the driver of the jeep in which Kemp was a

passenger fell asleep at the wheel, causing the vehicle to flip over.

Kemp's spinal cord was severed, paralyzing him from the waist down.



Down but not out, Kemp and other patients at the Veterans

Administration Medical Center in Cleveland have recently received a

sprig of hope.  The center's Gait Laboratory has been treating

participating paraplegics, quadriplegics and stroke victims with a

computer-assisted system called Functional Electrical Stimulation

(FES).



With FES, thin stainless steel wires are inserted into patients'

muscles to electrically stimulate groups of lower-body muscles.  The

system, which is programmed to cause certain muscle groups to contract

in sequence, has enabled people such as Kemp to stand, walk and climb

steps again.



Although the FES system is still being fine-tuned, its developers have

brought it a long way since a 16-channel walking system was first

transplanted into a patient in 1980.  Since then, researchers at the

motion-study laboratory have ramped up to a 48-channel system, which

provides the user with a considerably smoother gait by pre-programming

the Digital Equipment Corp. VAX software to activate a greter number

of muscles than before.



Most of the 30 patients who have used the system typically walk

between 1,000 and 2,000 feet, although one patient managed to cover

4,800 feet -nearly one mile.  "Our goal is to make it as smooth and

cosmetically appealling as possible," says Paul Miler, an excercise

physiologist at the facility.



The system has also benefitted stroke victims who have lost control of

certain muscle groups.  "The stimulation gives the person more

stability when they're walking," notes Jennifer Hull, a physical

therapist who works with stroke victims at the center.



After using the FES system for the past year, Kemp, 35, has more

energy to run his 3-year-old trucking business from his home in

Taylor, Michigan.  Kemp's greatest accomplishment, he says, was in

August when he stood for the first time since the injury.  But he's

determined to reach even loftier heights.



"Eventually, one day in my lifetime, I will walk again," Kemp says.

"It's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when.'"



                               Thomas Hoffman - senior correspondent

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