[LegionMammal978]

> My suspicion (tho I'd love to be educated on this) is that the reference patient did not have a truly 'complete' spinal cord injury, but rather one where there were at least some nervecells remaining/bruised.

This is mentioned in the article at the start of the Discussion section:

> The validation of this digital bridge was restricted to a single individual with severe but partial damage of the spinal cord, and it therefore remains unclear whether the BSI will be applicable to other injury locations and severities. However, several observations suggest that this approach will be applicable to a broad population of individuals with paralysis.

The authors likewise anticipate that there won't be any technical hurdles in miniaturizing the technology and making it self-calibrating.