Question: how would you use technology to help with research for MS?

Neil Dhir answered on 18 Jun 2014:

An excellent question, which requires a very very broad answer.

To start with, technology is the primary tool with which MS is researched and investigated. Because it is a neurological disease we need to peer into the brain, and that in itself is very difficult and requires lots and lots of very advanced technology. A brain scan for example, is taken using something called an MRI machine which stands for ‘Magnetic Resonance Imaging’. Now, if we were to make these machines better and better, we would be able to get a clearer view of what is going on inside the brain and why people get sick, why the get MS or e.g. why the get a headache.

But from my point of view, I do not try to establish the causes of MS, nor do I try to tackle it from the very beginning (which is what neurologists do). Instead I try to help people who have already contracted the ailment, and unfortunately very many people around the world do. So, the very broad-field of what I actually do is something called rehabilitation robotics.

Here is a very famous lab in Switzerland that in particular specialise in rehabilitation robotics: http://www.relab.ethz.ch/research/index

You can see from that website exactly what sort of technology is employed to help regain movement again. So what they do is to use a combined approach of robotics, psychophysics and cognitive neuroscience to develop and clinically evaluate diagnostic, therapeutic and assistive tools in order to promote recovery, independence and social integration of the physically disabled. They are especially interested in hand function, and how haptic feedback can benefit motor learning, rehabilitation therapy, and human-machine interaction.

Now it is interesting that they focus on hand-movement in particular. Why is this do you think? Well the answers vary, but from my own experience, it is often the case that handicapped people are not too fussed about moving again, as they are about being able to use their hands. Without wanting to sound too fatalist and defeatist, there are already excellent mobility devices out there should someone truly want to move around (e.g. wheel-chairs). But, when it comes to hand it becomes a lot more tricky.

You will notice that your hands are exceptionally dexterous and nimble. Even me being able to type to you now, and at the rate at which I am doing it, is quite frankly fantastic. Now imagine now that you want to replicate that in e.g. a robot; that is very difficult. People are working on it, but it is going to take time. But if we instead try to restore some of the lost hand-function of disabled people, well perhaps that might be where we should start? There are many projects where people try to use more advanced forms of gloves, which have built in electronics, that the user wears, which help them restore some of their function, by helping to control the arm and hand muscles for them. So effectively these devices provide the control that the person should have had, had he or she not been disabled.

All in all, it is truly fascinating. But to give you a shorter answer to your question: I would use technology to build control systems which replicate human brain function, and use these systems to control rehabilitation devices, which could help people move their legs, arms and hands again.