Remember the BrainGate Neural Interface System, that we covered in an earlier post?
Here we find technology of a similar species. BBC News reports:
Scientists in the US have created a robotic arm that can be controlled by thought alone.
Developed at Pittsburgh University, it has a fully mobile shoulder and elbow and a gripper that works like a hand.
In early tests, monkeys had tiny probes inserted into their brains and had their limbs restrained – but were then able to manipulate the robotic arm.
The inventors believe it could help people who have lost limb function through disease or trauma.
Dr Andrew Schwartz’s team inserted a number of tiny probes into the brains of monkeys.
The probes interpret signals from individual nerve cells in the motor cortex.
Given that even the smallest of movements involve thousands of nerve signals too numerous to track, the scientists used a gadget to work out the most important signals.
The computer algorithm averages out the dominant signals to obtain the overall movement picture, which they called the “population vector”.
(hat tip: Gizmodo)