Courtine had previously shown that this type of automatic walking could initiate walking patterns in the hind limbs of spinal-cord-injured rats that were spinally stimulated while on a treadmill. Because the spinal column could control the walking pattern, Courtine suspected that only a weak signal from the brain would be necessary for the animals to start walking voluntarily.
To test whether the rats could recover brain-directed control of these movements, he and his team developed a robotic support system that suspends rats in a bipedal standing posture and helps with balance but does not provide any forward momentum. Ten paralyzed rats were trained daily to walk with stimulation both on a treadmill and in the robotic system. After two to three weeks, the rats took their first voluntary steps. "This is the first time we have seen voluntary control of locomotion in an animal with
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