. >> three, two, one -- >> it happened in a small lab, but for ian burkhart it was an enormous moment[applause] >> a few days ago he was the first to move a paralyzed hand by using his own thoughts. the system called neurobridge using a chip planted in ian's brain, the area that controls the hand and arm movements. it reads his thoughts, processes them and in less than .1 of a second it sends signals to a high-tech sleeve on his arm making his handled move. >> it is much like a heart bypass. we are going around the brain to the muscles. >> and others use robot particulars to move the muscles burt this built by ohio state university and a tech firm is the first to use this bypass method. >> where we are now is staggering. >> and he was injured in a diving accident and using kn neurobridge. >> if you can do things on your own, brush your teeth, it the a big difference. >> it is a bit kwcumbersome. and the hope is that it will help with the every day tasks that we tend to take for granted. >> quite a story, thank you. >>> thank you. still ahead, lamar burton on a mission to bring back a

." >> reporter: four years ago ian burkhart was an athletic 19-year-old lacrosse playing young man with from the chest down. so when he arrived at the ohio state university wechsler medical center last week he had the highest of hopes that a new medical experiment might change his fate and the fate of others. >> are you perfectly fine being a guinea pig? >> yeah i don't mind it at all. >> reporter: ian had brain surgery 2 1/2 months ago in an unprecedented medical trial involving surgeons from ohio state and engineers from batel, a nonprofit research center who created a technology called neurobridge. chad bowden is a batel engineer. >> technology is going to take brain activity from a tiny chip we've implanted in the brain and translate that activity to a message that the muscles can understand. and then send that activity to the muscles and he's going to be able to open his hand. >> reporter: and that by passes the damaged spinal cord? >> that's right. >> reporter: the micro chip is connected to a port in ian as you skull. it's to a sport in a computer that is supposed to decode messa