Jeremy Shere

Yes, I know that “Monkey Brain Robot Arm” sounds like the title of a new Beck CD, but it’s actually a pretty literal description of what’s going on in the picture to the left. A monkey encased in some sort of metal contraption is using its brain to control a robotic arm.

You may recall reading about something like this a few years ago, such as this article in NewScientist in 2003. Back then, scientists had trained a monkey to move a robotic “third arm” to grip things and wave around.

What’s different this time around is that the monkey (not the same monkey, of course) is able to exert specific enough control over the arm to feed itself a marshmallow.

Here’s how it works. First, the monkey was trained to move the robot arm using a joystick–which in itself is pretty remarkable. Then, electrodes implanted in the monkey’s brain recorded brain activity as the monkey watched a computer move the arm and make it grip a marshmallow. Basically, the monkey was trained to imagine themselves moving the arm, to picture the task in its mind. The researchers–at the University of Pittsburgh–then translated the monkey’s brainwaves into information used to control the arm. So, as you can see in the picture, when the monkey is strapped into a device that restrains its arm, all it has to do is think about moving the arm and, bingo, the arm moves to grab a marshmallow and bring it to the monkey’s mouth.

You can watch two videos of the monkey and robot arm in action.

So, basically, this represents another step toward helping people who’ve been paralyzed or otherwise lost use of their limbs being able to control a prosthesis using their brains. It will still be awhile before this technology is widely available for people. But it’s coming.

Source: Technology Review