A different group in Pittsburgh placed probes in the brain of a monkey, then trained the monkey to use a joystick to control the motion of a 2D circular shape on the screen in front of it. The monkey would have to move the shape over another circle placed on the screen, then squeeze the joystick to make its circle get bigger to match the one that was already there. It would then have to hold the joystick with the correct amount of pressure for three seconds to make the circles match in order to get rewarded with some apple juice. What the monkey didn't know is that each time it moved the joystick, it was moving a robotic arm in a different room. It's brain signals were also being mapped by the researchers, so they could determine what each move looked like on the computer. After a while of doing this, the researchers took the joystick away and sat the monkey in front of the screen. By this time, they had been able to map what signals the monkey's brain was putting out each time it moved the joystick in a certain way. So now, they wanted to see if the monkey could make the circle move just by thinking it to do so. After sitting there for a little while, the circle began to move over to the other one on the screen, then grew in size and was held for three seconds to match the other circle. The robotic arm in a different room was also moving because of the monkey's thoughts controlling it to do so. The researchers are hoping to find better ways of mapping the brain signals, so that this can be used in humans. Currently, they have to run hundreds of wires right into the monkey's brain and there need to be quite a few computers processing the signals. They are hoping to make an external helmet or something similar in the future that would make it much more feasible. It could mean that people who have lost limbs would have prosthetics put in that were completely controlled by their thoughts. Pretty crazy. The defense agency research program found out about this too and they couldn't be happier. They are hoping that one day we can have a soldier that controls a battle field of robots from 2000 miles away just by "thinking" them to do this and that from the safety of an enclosed room behind a computer screen.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ty, the technology guy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM
A different group in Pittsburgh placed probes in the brain of a monkey, then trained the monkey to use a joystick to control the motion of a 2D circular shape on the screen in front of it. The monkey would have to move the shape over another circle placed on the screen, then squeeze the joystick to make its circle get bigger to match the one that was already there. It would then have to hold the joystick with the correct amount of pressure for three seconds to make the circles match in order to get rewarded with some apple juice. What the monkey didn't know is that each time it moved the joystick, it was moving a robotic arm in a different room. It's brain signals were also being mapped by the researchers, so they could determine what each move looked like on the computer. After a while of doing this, the researchers took the joystick away and sat the monkey in front of the screen. By this time, they had been able to map what signals the monkey's brain was putting out each time it moved the joystick in a certain way. So now, they wanted to see if the monkey could make the circle move just by thinking it to do so. After sitting there for a little while, the circle began to move over to the other one on the screen, then grew in size and was held for three seconds to match the other circle. The robotic arm in a different room was also moving because of the monkey's thoughts controlling it to do so. The researchers are hoping to find better ways of mapping the brain signals, so that this can be used in humans. Currently, they have to run hundreds of wires right into the monkey's brain and there need to be quite a few computers processing the signals. They are hoping to make an external helmet or something similar in the future that would make it much more feasible. It could mean that people who have lost limbs would have prosthetics put in that were completely controlled by their thoughts. Pretty crazy. The defense agency research program found out about this too and they couldn't be happier. They are hoping that one day we can have a soldier that controls a battle field of robots from 2000 miles away just by "thinking" them to do this and that from the safety of an enclosed room behind a computer screen.