Dr. Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh implanted sensors into the brain of a monkey and allowed it to move a robotic arm to feed itself. That arm in 2008 had 4 degrees of freedom and many more degrees of terrifying. It used the arm as shown below to feed itself marshmallows and chunks of fruit. One day when the researcher in the video runs out of marshmallows I imagine a super powered mech/monkey chasing me down the street throwing poo at high velocities and doing shakedowns on elementary school children looking for marshmallows with dire consequences for coming up dry.
This year, however, a newer arm with sensors located deep within the monkey’s brain, specifically the hand area and the other in the monkey’s motor cortex allowed the monkey to control a robotic arm with 7 points of articulation. In the video below the monkey is trained to use the arm to touch a knob to be rewarded with a sip of juice from a straw in its mouth. They might as well be training it to punch a picture of a face to be rewarded with Jack Daniels.
Researchers one day hope this will advance prosthetic techology by allowing the brain to directly control a device. Or at least create Monkeys that can tear you in half.
via:[physorg]
