For decades, advances in medical technology have focused on restoring movement to people living with paralysis. But for scientists like Chad Bouton, an engineer at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, movement alone is not enough. True independence, he realized, requires something more: the ability to feel.

This epiphany came in 2014, when a man using Bouton’s brain-computer interface to control his paralyzed hand shared a frustration, saying: “You know, Chad, I can’t feel this object.” It was a lightbulb moment.

Now, after years of research, Bouton’s team has developed a system that restores both movement and sensation. Their work is already changing lives, starting with Keith Thomas, a man who had been paralyzed from the chest down since a diving accident in 2020.