Brain-Computer Interfaces: Science Fiction to Science Fact

I came across this interesting article on a brain implant that monkeys have successfully used to manipulate an articulating arm. Figured I'd pass it along. Pretty cool stuff.

Here is the article:

When I was researching Brain Sense, I visited Mandayam Srinivasan, Director of MIT's Laboratory for Human and Machine Haptics, better known as the Touch Lab. Haptics, he explained to me, is a broad term that encompasses both the sense of touch and the manipulation of objects by humans, by machines, or by a combination of the two in real or virtual environments.

Srinivasan said that one of the major goals of haptic research is to develop devices that will assist people who have lost the use of a limb to accident or disease. In 2008, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh made progress toward that goal when two monkeys in their laboratory successfully used the power of their brains alone to control robotic arms and hands. Unlike similar, earlier experiments in which brain-power controlled the movement of a cursor on a screen, this robotic action was three-dimensional and personal. The monkeys picked up food, fed themselves-even licked their robotic fingers.

A monkey feeding itself using a robotic arm controlled by brain signals at the University of Pittsburgh (Andrew B. Schwartz)

To achieve this level of brain-machine communication, the researchers first analyzed the collective firings of neurons in the animals' brains when the monkeys moved their natural arms. Then the investigators wrote software that translated the patterns of neuronal firing into signals that controlled the movements of the robotic limb. Although the monkeys received no sense of touch feedback per se, they were able to control their robotic arms in a natural way, and the feedback-successful food retrieval and feeding-was sufficient to sustain the action. So precise was the control that the monkeys could adjust the grip of the robotic hand to accommodate varying sizes and thicknesses of food pieces. To the researchers' surprise, the monkeys learned that marshmallows and grapes would stick to their hands, so a firm grip wasn't necessary when those foods were on offer.

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