Paraplegic in robotic suit set to kick off World Cup

A young paraplegic is expected to make the first kick of the World Cup on Thursday using a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton, the BBC reports.

If all goes as planned at the opening ceremony, the paraplegic will leave behind his or her wheelchair to take to the pitch in the suit and kick one of the new Brazuca balls.

The identity of the young volunteer is being kept a secret.

The robotic suit has been created by a team of more than 150 researchers.

The development of the suit has been led by Brazilian neuroscientist Dr Miguel Nicolelis, under the banner of a consortium called the Walk Again Project.

Dr Nicolelis, who is based at Duke University in the US, is a leading scientist in the field of brain-machine interfaces. In breakthrough work published in 2003, he showed that monkeys could control the movement of virtual arms on an avatar using just their brain activity.

In a statement, the Walk Again Project said the World Cup demonstration would be "just the beginning" of a future "in which people with paralysis may abandon the wheelchair and literally walk again.”

But the setting will be a far cry from laboratory conditions.

"It's the first time an exoskeleton has been controlled by brain activity and offered feedback to the patients," Dr Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, told the AFP news agency.