Groundbreaking research by Professor Milos Popovic (IBBME) to restore movement in the hands of quadriplegic patients is featured in today’s The Globe & Mail.

Professor Popovic’s treatment focuses on functional electrical stimulation, in which electrical pulses are used to contract muscles in the patient’s body. This allows a patient to grasp things with his or her hand. Over the course of repeated treatments, the patient’s nervous system can be retrained so that he or she can eventually grasp items without using the electrical stimulation.

The experimental treatment is currently being studied through a national clinical trial being led by Professor Popovic and which is being funded through the Rick Hansen Institute.

Professor Popovic is a Core Professor in the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and the Toronto Rehab Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.

Read the story to learn more about Professor Popovic’s work.