Matthew Nagle (October 16, 1979 – July 24, 2007) was the first person to use a
brain–computer interface
A brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a brain–machine interface (BMI) or smartbrain, is a direct communication pathway between the brain, brain's electrical activity and an external device, most commonly a computer or robotic l ...
to restore functionality lost due to
paralysis
Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 50 ...
. He was a C3
tetraplegic
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or ...
, paralyzed from the neck down after being stabbed.
Biography
Nagle attended
Weymouth High School
Weymouth High School (WHS) is a comprehensive public high school in Weymouth, Massachusetts, United States that serves students in grades nine through twelve. Weymouth High School also offers a Career and Technical Education Program offering suc ...
(Class of 1998). He was an exceptional athlete and a star football player. In 2001, he sustained a stabbing injury while leaving the town’s annual fireworks show near
Wessagussett Beach on July 3. He was stabbed and his spinal cord severed when he stepped in to help a friend.
Nagle died on July 24, 2007 in
Stoughton, Massachusetts
Stoughton (official name: Town of Stoughton) is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 29,281 at the 2020 census. The town is located approximately from Boston, from Providence, Rhode Island, and from Cape ...
from
sepsis
Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...
.
BrainGate Clinical Trial
Nagle agreed to participate in a clinical trial involving the
BrainGate BrainGate is a brain implant system built and previously owned by Cyberkinetics, currently under development and in clinical trials, designed to help those who have lost control of their limbs, or other bodily functions, such as patients with amyot ...
Neural Interface System (developed by
Cyberkinetics
Cyberkinetics is an American company with roots tied to the University of Utah. It was co-founded by John Donoghue, Mijail Serruya, Gerhard Friehs of Brown University, and Nicho Hatsopoulos of the University of Chicago. The Braingate technolog ...
) out of a desire to again be healthy and lead a normal life, and in hopes that modern medical discoveries could help him. He also hoped that his participation in this Clinical Trial would help improve the lives of people who, like him, suffered injuries or diseases that cause severe motor disabilities.
The device was implanted on June 22, 2004 by neurosurgeon
Gerhard Friehs. A 96-
electrode
An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or air). Electrodes are essential parts of batteries that can consist of a variety of materials de ...
"
Utah Array
Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) (also referred to as multielectrode arrays) are devices that contain multiple (tens to thousands) microelectrodes through which neural signals are obtained or delivered, essentially serving as neural interfaces that co ...
" was placed on the surface of his
brain
A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...
over the region of
motor cortex
The motor cortex is the region of the cerebral cortex believed to be involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary movements.
The motor cortex is an area of the frontal lobe located in the posterior precentral gyrus immediately ...
that controlled his dominant left hand and arm. A link connected it to the outside of his skull, where it could be connected to a computer. The computer was then trained to recognize Nagle's thought patterns and associate them with movements he was trying to achieve.
While he was implanted, Matt could control a computer "mouse" cursor, using it then to press buttons that can control TV, check e-mail, and do basically everything that can be done by pressing buttons. He could draw (although the cursor control is not precise) on the screen. He could also send commands to an external
prosthetic
In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...
hand (close and open). The results of the study are published in the journal ''Nature''. Per
Food and Drug Administration
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...
(FDA) regulations and the study protocol, the
BrainGate BrainGate is a brain implant system built and previously owned by Cyberkinetics, currently under development and in clinical trials, designed to help those who have lost control of their limbs, or other bodily functions, such as patients with amyot ...
device was removed from him after approximately one year.
Charges against assailant
On June 5, 2008, a grand jury in
Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Norfolk County is located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. At the 2020 census, the population was 725,981. Its county seat is Dedham. It is the fourth most populous county in the United States whose county seat is neither a city nor a bor ...
indicted on a second-degree murder charge Nagle's attacker Nicholas Cirignano. Cirignano had in 2005 been convicted of Nagle's stabbing and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. District Attorney William Keating used the state medical examiner's ruling that the stabbing had caused Nagle's eventual death as grounds to seek the murder charge.
On April 10, 2009, a Superior Court Judge ruled that Cirignano could not be tried for murder, as the jury's verdict from the original assault case had already determined that one of the key components to a murder charge, malice, was negated by excessive force in self-defence. However, the lesser charge of
manslaughter
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...
could still, in theory, be applied.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagle, Matt
Nagle, Matthew
1979 births
2007 deaths
American murder victims
People murdered in Massachusetts
People from Stoughton, Massachusetts
Deaths by stabbing in Massachusetts
Deaths from sepsis
Infectious disease deaths in Massachusetts