Dr Peterson, a C4 complete quadriplegic, has just started a year-long experimental process at Queensland's Griffith University, where the goal is to improve sensory and neurological function below the initial spinal chord injury, which in Dr Peterson's case was the C4 vertebra.

He sustained the injury early in 2018 when he was knocked off his bicycle riding to work.

The research is being led by Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM, the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland and just the second person to graduate medical school with quadriplegia in Australia. It was during his studies he was injured in a car accident.

Dr Palipana is also a lawyer and disability advocate and was at the helm when the program attracted $2m in funding in 2019.

"It's called Bio-Spine," Dr Peterson said.

"The idea is, we get put on a bicycle, I've got this lattice thing over my head that measures my brainwaves very accurately," he said.

Along with the electrodes covering his scalp, Dr Peterson wears goggles showing him a virtual cycling course and combined the devices, convince his brain he is cycling.

While he thinks about the ride, coordinated electrical impulses are sent to his legs to stimulate the muscles.

"It's a bit of a combination I guess of mind control and the medication I'm now on, and this sort of virtual reality training. They've done it overseas before with modest but measurable improvements, they've been able to show they've improve various paraplegics being able to mobilise a little bit.

"The measure of how disabled they were was able to change."

To take part in the year-long study, Dr Peterson's schedule until June next year will be a gruelling one. He will fly to the Gold Coast and take part in the research on Thursday and Friday, stay the weekend and then continue with the program on Monday and Tuesdays.

"Then repeat the process eight days later," he said.

He will also continue to work as a telehealth doctor, work he can take with him, and will attend Orange City Council meetings two Tuesdays a month.

Despite the tough schedule, which will separate him from his Orange support base and wife Deborah, who discovered the program, Dr Peterson is optimistic about the results.

"I guess improved sensory neurological function [is the goal]," he said.

"If I could get to the point where I could transfer, if I could stand up to go from, or even with assistance, go from a chair to a bed or a chair to car, that would be amazing.

"At the moment I need a hoist for all these things and that can be quite annoying."

He also said being a part of the research was interesting.

"It's certainly got plenty of interesting equipment and science rationale and is based on other work elsewhere. I guess it's a big input on time and money to be able to come up and do it and that's a bit daunting, being away from my family for a big chunk of the year.

"But oh well, what's to lose."

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