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's electrical activity and an external device, most commonly a computer or robotic limb. B ...

to restore functionality lost due to paralysis. He was a C3 tetraplegic, 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 am ...

Neural Interface System (developed by Cyberkinetics) 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 d ...

" Utah Array" 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 ve ...

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

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 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