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Report, November 28, 2001  Engineer studies advances in recovery
of paralyzed patients   Reaching out to touch a dot on a
computer screen may seem simple, but it requires a complex chain
of signals that link together the eye, brain and arm. Damage to
any part of that chain, such as a spinal injury, stroke or
neurodegenerative disease, can make even the simplest tasks
impossible.  In a new study, Stanford engineer Krishna Shenoy
and a group of researchers at Caltech have shown that at least
some links in that chain can be dramatically bypassed. The study
is a significant advance in the growing field of neural
prosthetics -- implanted devices that eventually may help
severely paralyzed patients regain some of their lost functions.
The results of the study were presented by Daniella Meeker, a
Caltech graduate student, at the annual meeting of the Society
for Neuroscience in San Diego on Nov. 11.  Planned movements
Shenoy, Meeker and their colleagues show