Robotic Blogs

U0308347 Qui Wei Loong

Monkeys Control Robotic Arm with Brain Implants
Scientists in North Carolina have built a brain implant that lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts, marking the first time that mental intentions have been harnessed to move a mechanical object

The experiments use monkey to control a robot arm through the use of their thoughts. This is a clear indication that in the close future we can look into the possible use of robotics part for the disable. The experiments is led by Miguel A.L. Nicolelis from the Duke University in Durham, N.C published today in the journal PLoS Biology, the latest in a progression in mind controlled robotics parts in only science fiction-like movies. [1]

This bodes well for the success of brain-machine interfaces. Till now the achievement of mind control machine is only limited to virtual actions like moving a cursor or typing to a computer screen which is basically a 2 dimension task. The monkey is able to learn to control robotic in a 3 dimension task like reaching for an object grasping it and even adjust the amount of strength of the grip. "This is where you want to be," said Karen A. Moxon, a professor of biomedical engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. "It's one thing to be able to communicate with a video screen. But to move something in the physical world is a real technological feat. And Nicolelis has taken this work to a new level by quantifying the neuroscience behind it."
The devices use tiny electrodes, each one thinner than a human hair. The tiny wires were directly stuck about 1 mm into the monkey brain (ouch, I think they need to work on this part) and patched the skull using dental cement. The monkeys were unaffected by the surgery but are curious about the wires that are sticking out of their head. The wires are hooked to a computer and on to a large mechanical arm. The training of the monkey is done by placing the monkey and the arm in separate room to prevent the monkey from being frightened by the robotic arm. The monkeys were given joystick to control the arm to grab a cup of juice. They were rewarded with juice if they are successful in grabbing with the right amount of strength and moving the cup. The computer recorded the brain activity and record the animal's neural firing patterns was now serving as an interpreter, decoding the brain signals according to what it had learned from the joystick games and then sending the appropriate instructions to the mechanical arm. After the computer got good record of the brain activity, the joystick was unplugged. The monkey kept moving the joystick, not realizing that her own brain was now solely in charge of the arm's movements. Then, he said, an amazing thing happened. The animal was controlling the robot with its thoughts.

There were initial signs that there was a decline in performance but just a day of further training the control become so smooth like is it the monkey’s own arm"It's quite plausible that the perception is you're extended into the robot arm, or the arm is an extension of you," agreed the University of Washington's Fetz, a pioneer in the field of brain-controlled devices.
John P. Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University developing a similar system, said paralyzed patients would be the first to benefit by gaining an ability to type and communicate on the Web, but the list of potential applications is endless, he said. The devices may even allow quadriplegics to move their own limbs again by sending signals from the brain to various muscles, leaping over the severed nerves that caused their paralysis. [1]
"Once you have an output signal out of the brain that you can interpret, the possibilities of what you can do with those signals are immense," said Donoghue, who recently co-founded a company, Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., to capitalize on the technology.

1http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17434-2003Oct12?language=printer