For the first time ever, a quadriplegic man has moved his hand using his own thoughts, FoxNews reports.

Ian Burkhart, a 23-year-old who became paralyzed after a diving accident four years ago, is the first patient to try out Neurobridge, which reroutes brain signals. The system combines a computer chip implanted in the brain, a brain-computer interface, and a sleeve that transmits electrical signals to the patient's forearm and hand.

Neurobridge works as a kind of neural "bypass," taking signals from the brain, rerouting them around the damaged spinal cord and sending them directly to the muscles, according to its developers, including doctors at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and researchers from Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio.

The chip reads the brain signals and sends them to a computer that recodes them as signals that the muscles can pick up. The computer then sends those signals to the sleeve, which is covered with about 200 electrodes, which stimulate the musclesand make them move.

Previous technologies have allowed patients to control robotic arms with their thoughts, but Neurobridge is the first that has allowed patients to move their own limbs.