This is very interesting and could help improve many lives.

Spinal muscle atrophy or SMA is a genetic disease that gradually destroys motor neurons, nerve cells in the spinal cord that control muscles. This leads to muscles wasting away, especially in the legs, hips, and shoulders and sometimes those involved with breathing and swallowing. There is currently no cure. A gene therapy can save the lives of very young children with a severe form of the disease, and there are some medicines to slow down worsening for older patients.

Stimulating the spinal cord with low levels of electricity has been used to treat chronic pain but Capogrosso's team also tested it to help people paralyzed from strokes or spinal cord injury move their limbs unaided. While turned on, it zaps circuits of dormant nerves downstream of the injury to activate muscles.

Capogrosso then wondered if that same technology might help SMA in a similar way — by revving up related sensory nerves so they wake up damaged muscle cells, helping them move to combat wasting. The Pitt researchers implanted electrodes over the lower spinal cord of three adults with SMA and tested their muscle strength, fatigue, range of motion, and changes in gait and walking distance when the device was firing and when it was turned off.

It did not restore normal movement but with just a few hours of spinal stimulation a week, all quickly saw improvements in muscle strength and function.

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