Brain Power

In 2001, Matt Nagle was a 25-year-old football star. Then one night he had a bad accident that resulted in his spinal cord being cut.

Matt was paralyzed from the neck down. He could not do anything alone. Matt couldn’t even breathe by himself. Doctors kept working to make better equipment for people like Matt to stay alive. Science labs kept doing research to try and find answers. They were trying to make machines to help paralyzed patients. A company who does research on brains was searching for ways to use brain waves. They chose Matt as the first person to try a new technology. They wanted to do an experiment that used machines to carry out instructions from inside the brain.

In June 2004, the doctors implanted a chip into Matt’s brain. This chip could run machines with his thoughts. Matt could send simple messages to a computer with this chip. He could change channels on the TV. Matt could play computer games and turn lights on and off. All of these things he could do just by thinking about them.

Matt worked for months to get the messages to move from his brain to the computer. It was very hard. The technology was difficult. The doctors were worried that the chip might injure Matt’s body. They also worried that it might hurt his brain and his thinking. Matt wanted to fight to get better. Matt kept fighting in hopes of trying to help make things better for other people like himself.