Bionic humans are about to get an upgrade, thanks to monkey cyborgs

In a big footprint towards making humans more bionic , scientists have prepare monkey to control not just one , but two virtual arms by thoughts alone . The employment could someday be a boon to doubled amputees or quadriplegic .

In 2011 , investigator led by Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis demonstrated a uniquetwo - way user interface between mind and machine . The team start by recording natural process from up to 200 neurons in the brains of monkeys . Once computer algorithms understand how different neuronal patterns led to specific subdivision move , the researchers transposed those drive command into a virtual world , allowing the monkeys to control a virtual arm . Next , by adding in a technique call intracortical microstimulation , which electrically stimulate sensorial neurons in the brain , the research worker gave the monkeys the ability to “ feel ” the virtual objects they manipulated .

https://gizmodo.com/biotech-breakthrough-monkeys-can-feel-virtual-objects-5846275

It was a nerveless , innovative experiment , which had implications forinstilling touch into prostheticsin the future . But like the brain - auto interface ( BMI ) studies that camebeforeandafterit , the work only turn over monkeys control of a single tree branch . This limitation lies in how the brain works to produce movement .

https://gizmodo.com/a-major-breakthrough-in-bringing-the-sense-of-touch-to-1445039422

inquiry has shownthat the brain does n’t encode the campaign of two subdivision at once as a simple amount of the movement of two main branch . Instead , the specific patterns of action in the genius are whole different . This intend that the neuronal patterns that researchers have recorded for single - arm drift will not work — at all — for make a motion two practical or prosthetic limbs .

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So Nicolelis , who was also behind thattrippy mind - meld mouse experimentfrom originally this year , ready out to make a BMI that allow monkeys to control two virtual arm with their thoughts alone . “ two-handed movement in our everyday activities — from typing on a keyboard to opening a can — are critically important , ” he enounce in a argument . “ next brain - political machine interfaces aim at restoring mobility in humans will have to incorporate multiple limbs to greatly gain severely paralyzed patients . ”

https://gizmodo.com/brain-to-brain-interfaces-have-arrived-and-they-are-ab-5987567

Connecting the Mind to the Machine

Nicolelis and his colleague began by embed electrodes into the mind of two scallywag , which recorded the electric action of intimately 500 neurons acting together . This is the highest number of neurons simultaneously record in nonhuman primates to date , the investigator note in their study , published recently in the journalScience Translation . The neurons were locate across both brain hemispheres , in the monkeys ’ supplemental motor region , main motor cortex and posterior parietal cerebral mantle — areas that work together to plan and execute movement .

The researcher trained one of the rascal to control the movement of two avatar rascal arms on a computer screen using two joysticks . To get a juice reinforcement , it had to simultaneously range the practical munition over two virtual objects for one - ten percent of a second . While the hierarch worked at its task , a computer algorithm analyzed the scalawag ’s neural activeness to determine how unlike traffic pattern link up to specific arm movements .

Once the algorithm could accurately predict the monkey ’s movement base on its encephalon patterns , the researchers motivate on to phase two . The scallywag repeated its undertaking from the first part of the experimentation , but this time the joysticks were disconnected — the primate was actually actuate the two avatar limb with just its thoughts , which were being decoded by the computer algorithm . The researchers remove the joysticks on the whole and strapped the monkey into a chairman so it could n’t move its arms . The monkey quickly learn to move the virtual arms by idea alone .

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Importantly , this kind of setup can not be used for paralytic and amputee affected role , who are unable to aim the algorithm by play with joysticks . So the researcher had the second rascal go through a different grooming program . Here , the team stick the rapscallion into a death chair and secured its handwriting on a table in front of it . The monkey merely watched the avatar arms move around on screen , while the algorithm correlate the monkey ’s brainpower patterns with the drift of the avatar arm . It took longer , but the monkey was finally able to control the virtual arms with thoughts , too .

The researchers think that in the future , the procedure of controlling two avatar arm with the psyche could be translated to controlling two prosthetic arms . However , this end may not be strain any time before long , as the movements the monkey achieved were quite simple . “ It still remains to be tested how well BMIs would control motor activity requiring precise interlimb coordination , ” they pen in their paper .

Check out the report over in the journalScience Translation .

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