When Erik Sorto was 21, a gunshot wound left him paralysed from the neck down. Over ten years later, he was preparing smoothies for a room full of kids with brain injuries. For the past two years, Sorto's been trialling a neural implant that lets him move a robotic arm with only his thoughts.

He recently even used the arm to accomplish his own personal goal: taking a sip of beer by himself.

Sorto, who is now 34, is the first person in the world to have a neural prosthetic device implanted in an area of the brain called the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), where our movements are planned.