By: Billy Hurley, Digital Editorial Manager
While a presidential meetup is a once-in-a-lifetime moment for many, a handshake in 2016 between 30-year-old Nathan Copeland and President Barack Obama felt extra special.
For starters, Copeland, paralyzed from the chest down after a car accident, was using a robotic hand – one controlled by two brain implants in his motor cortex.
With the on-brain nanoelectrodes, Copeland could restore the connection between brain and body. His thoughts moved the arm so that he could, quite literally, reach out to the President, to shake his hand.
A second set of electrodes, located in the sensory cortex, gave Copeland another breakthrough: the ability to feel it.
