Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Robotic Arm Controlled By Monkey Thoughts

Posted by Zonk on Fri Feb 18, 2005 06:29 PM
from the next-step-is-cyber-monkeys dept.
Biotech Science
mallumax writes "The BBC reports that Pittsburgh University scientists have succeeded in creating a robotic arm, controlled by probes inserted into the brain of monkeys. The probes interpret signals from individual nerve cells in the motor cortex. Monkeys were able to grasp and hold food with the robotic arm. Since the number of nerve signals for even small movements is huge the scientists used an averaging algorithm to obtain the movement signals."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Brain Interface Lets Monkeys Control Prosthetic Limbs 208 comments
himicos was one of many readers to point out one recent success of scientists working to develop working brain-machine interfaces, writing "A team at the university of Pittsburgh has finally advanced a 2002 technology enough for use in prosthetic limbs, the targeted application all along. Training computer models to the firing patterns of the neurons in the parts of the brain that control motion, they are able to project the intentions of a monkey to a robotic arm, which follows the will of the animal. The sad thing about the articles is that the beauty of the mathematics used to create and train the models is totally ignored." Reader phpmysqldev adds a link to coverage at the BBC, and writes "This of course brings significant hope to amputees and other other people with physical disabilities." (Note that this research has been going on for quite some time.)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Robotic Arm Controlled By Monkey Thoughts 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • That's not my hand on your ass (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2005, @06:30PM (#11718189)
    That's my monkey controlled robot arm's hand on your ass.

  • Tool use? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wind river (841704) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:31PM (#11718198)
    Wouldn't this also be a sign that monkeys are capable of fairly sophisticated tool use?

    • Re:Tool use? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Richie1984 (841487) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:33PM (#11718235)
      That's not the impression I got. It seems more like the monkey was moving the tool as if it were it's own limb, i.e. the moneky tried to move its hand and the tool moved instead. If this is the case, all it shows is that monkeys can control their own limbs.
    • Remember they are using the tool like they would use their own arm. Monkeys already can grasp--having opposable thumbs.
    • Sure, if the monkey built the arm himself. Otherwise it isn't much more than using a stick to whack another monkey around.

      That is some high-tech-poo-flinging right there.

    • Re:Tool use? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by glowimperial (705397) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:35PM (#11718252) Homepage
      I would think that there is plenty of non-robotic evidence that monkeys use and make simple tools, are skilled and knowledgable in their use and pass tool knowledge from individual to individual already in the wild. Monkeys have been trained to operate tools and devices before this, both in and out of laboratory settings. I wouldn't consider this a breakthrough or in any way revealing about monkeys, I would consider it more of a robotic/hapic/man-machine interface breakthrough.

      • Birds Make and Use Tools (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2005, @07:09PM (#11718590)
        I think I saw an article here sometime ago about raven's fashioning tools out of paperclips in order to snag food.

        A quick search on google turns up an entire site devoted to tool use in birds [tufts.edu].
    • Wouldn't this also be a sign that monkeys are capable of fairly sophisticated tool use?

      Indeed it would, and the implications are frightening. Imagine steroid-enhanced cyborg chimpanzee super-soldiers high on crystal meth.

      Try dangling a bunch of bananas in front of that cage.

      • American Mecha-Monkey Marines, the most potent weapon in the fight against terrorism!

        "Run! They've mastered tool use!"
        • Sounds like the premise for a good cartoon or video game.

          Though we'll need to modify the title a bit and put them into space.

          In the end, I have to say it...

          I for one, welcome our new Mecha-Monkey Marine Overlords.

          Ye Gads! That's the title...
    • This is actually more like using an existing arm rather than learning to use a tool. We all had to go through a process of learning to use our own arms when we were babies. Our neurons carry the signals from our brains to our muscles and the muscles react according to the signal. We unconsciously figured out during our infancy what signals made our muscles do particular movements. In this case, the neurons interface with tiny electrodes that pick up the signals and a computer translates them into instructio
    • ...that scientists are getting fairly sophisticated at using monkeys.
  • "The inventors believe it could help people who have lost limb function through disease or trauma." Why are all these types of enhancements framed in terms of the disabled? We are disabled. Why must we hunger, breath air, thirst, sleep? I wonder if these researchers are just giving the public this. Can they see the obvious leap to transhumanism?
    • Besides the obvious addition of extra limbs a la Doc Oc from Spiderman, imagine what it would be like if everyday people had loads of mechanical limbs. As if drivers on cell phones werent bad enough. Now people can drive, talk on the phone, type something on their laptop, eat, and read the newspaper at the same time.
      • I'm guessing that the brain only can handle two arms. You could have an extra limb, but it would perfectly mimic either the left or the right arm.

        Or your left or right leg, or maybe the arm could mimic one of your fingers. But I don't think that you can have a robotic limb which which is completely independend from all your existing limbs.

        Maybe if you got the robotic limb when you were a baby.
  • For one armed monkeys.

  • Nipple Fettish (Score:5, Funny)

    by BlurredWeasel (723480) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:31PM (#11718212)
    As long as the monkey doesn't have a nipple fetish [boingboing.net] I think we'll be fine.

  • Sealab quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chairboy (88841) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:32PM (#11718219) Homepage
    Is there such thing as an obligatory Sealab 2021 quote yet?

    News Anchor: Scientists have successfully transplanted little Jango's brain into a robot monkey body. on a sad note, however, Jambo died late last night after drinking his own urine.

    Sparks: Hey, Skip. What do you think about all this robot stuff?

    Murphy: Why? Are we under attack?!

    Sparks: No..but that robot monkey on the news..

    Murphy: You're kidding! That guy's a robot monkey?

  • University of Pittsburgh NOT Pittsburgh University (Score:5, Informative)

    by rueba (19806) * on Friday February 18 2005, @06:33PM (#11718228)
    See here:
    http://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/faculty/schwartz.sh tml

    It seems he does joint work with CMU but his official position is at UPitt(as we sometimes call it).

    • Re:University of Pittsburgh NOT Pittsburgh Univers (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This work is *OLD*. Take a look at the Boston Arm for examples of why it doesn't work well. The electrodes cannot yet be permanently linked to small enough numbers of neurons to prevent huge amounts of signal noise, and you get a minimum of half a second of phase delay in the control systems to average out the noise. And the smaller you make the electrodes, the higher the impedance of the electrode, which also reduces your available signal level and potentially lowers your signal/noise.

      Mechanical arms read
  • Don't give monkey knives or guns. Just give them robotic arms a-la-Robocop!

  • Acceptable question now... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by andy314159pi (787550) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:33PM (#11718231) Journal
    The following is an acceptable question to ask:
    "Should we really be attaching electronics to monkey neurons?"

    • Re:Acceptable question now... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Richie1984 (841487) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:37PM (#11718281)
      That raises the question "is animal reseach acceptable if it benefits a larger number of humans?", which is a debate beyond the scope of this article, in my opinion. There's no indication that any animals were harmed in the process, and there's no mention whether there is any lasting damage, or if the proceedure is reversable. But, if I were going to use the technology, I personally would like the answers to those questions beforehand.
      • The tricky thing with that question is that the research cannot be known to benefit humans until the decision to harm the monkeys is alredy made. If a technique was KNOWN to work, it wouldn't be necessary to test it on monkeys. The way research works, it tends to fail more often than it succeeds (that's normal), and so there are many cases where the monkey harm had no human benefit. Short-sighted people can look at those individual cases and try to make the argument that in those cases it was wrong. But
              • I've toured several labs and met several animals used in neuroscience research--owls, rats, cats, monkeys, bats, etc. I've never got the impression that they experienced a substantial amount of pain. They all seemed perfectly normal except for the odd bit of metal sticking out of their heads.

                This kind of research takes a lot of time investment in individual animals--training takes a lot of one-on-one involvement, and scientists are no less likely than anyone else to form bonds with creatures they care for.
  • This is all well and good until some scientist accidentally fuzes 4 arms to himself and goes mad, rampaging through the city and hatching evil plots...

    oh the horror.
  • Robot Monkey Arms flings robot poo!!

  • Thanks to this robotic arm... (Score:3, Funny)

    by DaFallus (805248) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:35PM (#11718250)
    "In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey, the monkey will spank us."
  • people experimented with monkey thoughts [greencine.com]
  • I'm still trying to figure out if they're talking about the University of Pittsburgh, which has a rather well-known medical program, or Carnegie Mellon University (which would be a Pittsburgh University) which is world famous for its robotics program. Anyone? Bueller?
  • Could tissue growth be suppressed locally, maybe by having a supply of some anti-growth factor dispensed from the (possibly porous) probes? It would still have to be replenished; but undesirable side effects (suppressing tissue growth elsewhere) could be eliminated or mitigated and the probes could last much longer.

  • I imagine it can hurl (Score:5, Funny)

    by saddino (183491) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:38PM (#11718290)
    shit at blindingly fast speeds. Ex-cellent.
  • Holy shit! We're giving those evil little fuckers cyborg capabilities to go with their brains, opposable thumbs, and tails?!!
    NASA wants us all dead! NASA sent up monkeys - are they all accounted for? NASA sent up robots - where are they now? We can defeat the monkeys. We can defeat the robots. But NOT AT THE SAME TIME!
  • So when this tech matures will they be able to attatch a 3rd arm to my back so i can scratch my ass without distracting me from other activities. cool, but where would i buy shirts?

  • Now we can make new arms for monkeys... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bcmm (768152) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:41PM (#11718323)
    we can teach them to type!
    This will do wonders for the quality of discussion on Slashdot. CmdrTaco, if your reading this, please give extra mod points to non-human /.ers.
  • At Pittsburgh University, the monkey spanks you!

    -m
  • This item is very old, I remember it from last summer or spring. It is however, a very awesome achievement.

  • Old adage proven true (Score:5, Funny)

    by mdxi (3387) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:43PM (#11718340) Homepage
    The article says the team's biggest problem is that after about 6 months tissue grown begins to interfere with transmission of signals to the probe.

    This will no doubt limit the adoption of monkey cyborgs in RTOS and embedded spaces, and proves the old adage, "Always mount a scratch monkey".

  • And... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ZeroConcept (196261) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:44PM (#11718352)
    When given pen and paper, it wrote down:

    "Developers, developers, developers!!!!"

  • Reverse would be better (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kohath (38547) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:47PM (#11718382)
    I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a monkey arm controlled by robot thoughts.

  • Links and more info (Score:3, Informative)

    by FleaPlus (6935) on Friday February 18 2005, @07:18PM (#11718656) Homepage Journal
    First off, it's the University of Pittsburgh, not Pittsburgh University.

    The actual web site for Schwartz's lab:
    http://motorlab.neurobio.pitt.edu/ [pitt.edu]

    The above link has neat videos [pitt.edu] of the monkey moving the arm around.

    Researchers like Schwartz who record from motor areas of the brain do cool stuff, but I'm personally more interested in folks like the Andersen Lab [caltech.edu] who do recording from more goal-oriented areas. Basically, it's a difference between a command to "move my elbow this much" versus "I want to grab this object."

    Here's a PDF link [google.com] to a paper published by Schwartz and others in 2002. Here's the abstract:

    Direct Cortical Control of 3D Neuroprosthetic Devices

    Dawn M. Taylor, Stephen I. Helms Tillery, Andrew B. Schwartz

    Three-dimensional (3D) movement of neuroprosthetic devices can be controlled by the activity of cortical neurons when appropriate algorithms are used to decode intended movement in real time. Previous studies assumed that neurons maintain fixed tuning properties, and the studies used subjects who were unaware of the movements predicted by their recorded units. In this study, subjects had real-time visual feedback of their brain-controlled trajectories. Cell tuning properties changed when used for brain-controlled movements. By using control algorithms that track these changes, subjects made long sequences of 3D movements using far fewer cortical units than expected. Daily practice improved movement accuracy and the directional tuning of these units.

    • Re:And for the next version... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Stanistani (808333) on Friday February 18 2005, @06:37PM (#11718282) Homepage Journal
      From the article:
      "Our biggest problem is durability of the probes. Typically they last for about six months."

      I'd say a bigger problem is that to make this work, you have to stick friggin' needles into the brain!

      How about some sort of non-invasive sensor cap as the "next step."
      • I'd be more concerned about the algorithm they use. Due to the large amount of messages, most are scrapped and only the seemingly 'important' ones are saved. I'd want to make sure that the algorithm is actually effective before trying out this technology, or I'd like an explaination as to how they sort unimportant signals from important ones. Otherwise, the movements of the tool may not relate to what the user actually intended.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.