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Brain Interface Lets Monkeys Control Prosthetic Limbs
Posted by
timothy
on Thu May 29, 2008 09:21 AM
from the what-did-you-do-at-the-lab-today-bonzo dept.
from the what-did-you-do-at-the-lab-today-bonzo dept.
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.)
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Robotic Arm Controlled By Monkey Thoughts 327 comments
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."
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Hardware: Monkey's Thoughts Make Robot Walk 146 comments
geekbits writes "For all those who have at one time or another been too lazy to get up off the couch and go to the fridge and get a beer, heat up some pizza, or change the channel when the remote is missing, we may be one step closer to being able to keep our tushes parked just a little while longer. There may also be some slightly more noble implications here. According to an article in The New York Times, in an experiment at Duke University, a 12-pound, 32-inch monkey made a 200-pound, 5-foot humanoid robot walk on a treadmill using only her brain activity. She was in North Carolina, and the robot was in Japan."
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"Manhattan Project" For Prosthetic Arms 76 comments
cortex tips us to a story about a nationwide effort to incorporate advanced technology into the next generation of prosthetic arms. Researchers for the DARPA-funded project are developing feedback techniques that range from sensors on the surface of the user's skin to electrodes implanted on the inside of the user's skull that intercept and interpret signals from the motor cortex. Quoting:
"'Think about taking a sip from a can of soda,' Harshbarger says. The complex neural feedback system connecting a native limb to its user lets that user ignore an entire series of complicated steps. The nervous system makes constant automatic adjustments to ensure, for example, that the tilt of the wrist adjusts to compensate for the changing fluid level inside the can. The action requires little to no attention. Not so for the wearer of current prosthetic arms, for whom the act of taking a sip of soda precludes any other activity. The wearer must first consciously direct the arm to extend it to the correct point in space, then switch modes to rotate the wrist into proper position. Then he must open the hand, close it to grasp the soda can (not so weakly as to drop it but not so hard as to crush it), switch modes to bend the elbow to correctly place the can in front of his mouth, rotate the wrist into position, and then concentrate on drinking from the can of soda without spilling it."
Firehose:Brain Controlled Prosthetic Limbs by Anonymous Coward
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Hardware: The Future of Mind Control of Physical Objects 176 comments
mattnyc99 writes A month ago we discussed the accomplishment when researchers got monkeys to feed themselves with a robotic arm controlled by their brains. But after all the recent successful experiments with brain-computer interfaces, will the technology ever make it out of the lab and into hospitals — or even into our hands, for the closest thing imaginable to The Force? Popular Mechanics takes a look at the future of mind-machine control, speculating on several theoretical applications once brains can adapt to devices via direct communication between, say, synapse and prosthetic. Quoting the field's leading neuroscientist: 'For the foreseeable future, the main benefit is for rehabilitation. But the research is showing that the brain can act independently of the body. One day, you could be sitting in an office and controlling a device from across the room — or in another building. And it's not just flicking a switch. It could be a nanotool that's moving through a tiny environment, and you can control it and see what it's seeing.'"
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And just like that... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And just like that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course some experimentation will be needed when they move to human subjects, but a monkey's brain is similar enough to ours that they can get a starting point to experiment around, rather than working blind on a human subject.
One other thing to note, there are no touch/pain receptors within the brain itself - people have brain surgery done while awake so the doctors can keep them talking and know they aren't accidentally removing something important. Once you've got an opening into the skull (which would be done under anaesthetic) you can poke and prod at the brain all you want without the subject feeling a thing.
Oh, and its on the news because its interesting and something of a step forward scientifically. Quit it with the conspiracy theories please.
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Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking from experience, it is because the grant money is better. If you say you need money to research brain/machine interfaces for prothetic limbs to help disabled people, you are more likely to get it than when you say you need the research to give yourself/your_cyborg_army superhuman appendages to be used for world domination.
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Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:4, Funny)
Fair enough, but can't this research be directly applied to my one-man-cyborg-army-of-the-apocalypse idea, even though that's not the PR angle they're going for?
Once this technology advances to the stage where we can get genuine Darth Vader(tm) brand prosthetics after our various lightsaber mishaps, I'm just hoping that some entrepreneurial young Doctor will implant the control chips in perfectly healthy people for a fee, which you could then hook to the hardware of your choice. Of course, this may have to take place in a third world country where the FDA doesn't hold back novel ideas just because they aren't "medically necessary", or because it's an "abomination before God", or some such drivel.
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Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, because of the "abomination before God" factor, nobody in the medical establishment will ask this question officially for years, if ever. But I'm sure some geek amputee will start playing around with modding his new arm/leg/ear, and if he doesn't turn into a bloodthirsty cyborg, or get lynched by fundamentalists, he'll become very rich and famous by enabling us to reach way beyond what we thought our full potential was.
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Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:4, Funny)
Sure, go ahead and sign the contract.
Just remember that when all's said and done, you're the one with the army of cyborg supersoldiers.
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Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:5, Insightful)
An alternative might be the use muscles in the face to control extra limbs. Frowning would perform one action with the prosthetics, smiling another, etc. But this would be considerably more clumsy than the intended use- replacing a limb that doesn't exist on the physical body, but does have a designated place in the brain that controls it.
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Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I see this problem as more the case that we've only been conditioned to handle that many limbs over years of experience versus any sort of hard limit being imposed. (Not to mention it kind of runs across the grain of that whole "evolution" thing being needlessly debated...)
There have been numerous examples demonstrating that our brains are not only highly adaptive to new situations (such as the brain redistributing certain functions to different areas to overcome damaged areas), but are also highly receptive to new forms of input from external sources (such as invasive probing of the brain to create crude brain-to-computer interfaces to control simple devices, such as an on-screen cursor.)
The larger issue is really more of a case of creating a proper and convenient interface for cyborg-like add-ons. For example, do we necessarily have to invade the brain directly, or can we simply use existing connections by connecting jumper cables to the nerves running down the spine. And if that isn't an option, can we create or add extra, custom nerve sets to the spine and create connections to the brain that way?
Considering all that, a "third arm", or similar contraption is probably within the realm of possibility, but it may take time to adapt to and fine tune the system before it becomes effortless (or closer to that) to use. It's actually not all that dissimilar to the steps you have to go through for setting up a decent voice recognition system.
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Adapting the technology (Score:5, Funny)
Specifically, I'm thinking of adapting a laser prosthetic arm, to be used by the poor, armless sharks
It's just an idea
PLEASE tell me it makes them type faster (Score:4, Funny)
Other X-creatures (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Other X-creatures (Score:4, Funny)
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hope to amputees (Score:5, Funny)
As long as they don't mind carrying a monkey to control their prosthetic arm...
No typing required! (Score:4, Funny)
Monkey's opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Monkey's opinion (Score:5, Funny)
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Not impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Explain the beauty? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Explain the beauty? (Score:5, Informative)
Any good data communications textbook would have some nice examples in it, and actually that wikipedia article posted is very readable and informative.
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Re:Explain the beauty? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the topic, I am not entirely sure about the exact math used in the said experiment but based on the fact that the link points to the notion of "information content", here is my guess how it should work (at least in principle). I will try just because no one else seems to. Feel free to correct me.
The state of the neurons of the relevant area of the brain (relevant for the goal in the experiment - say pick marshmallows or open the door) could be modeled as a random variable. The first problem when trying to figure out what a certain electrical activity in brain represents would be to figure out whether you are looking at a random electrical activity (brain doing lots of background work maybe) or some order (brain trying to focus and activate the subroutine for "move hand and open door"). This difference between order and chaos is captured in a neat formula describing the entropy or the information content of the random variable. Naturally, the less the entropy the more the order. I have no idea what possibly goes on after this step.
In any case, now coming to the "beauty" part. Of course you need an eye to appreciate beauty for the notion is quite subjective. The remarkable thing is that a simple formula captures the vague notion of "order" that we all have. The formula might not be the most beautiful thing because as I understood from the article, the log term is somewhat forced to make sure different things add up nicely. But then, one could think of this very fact (the extra log term) as a neat mathematical representation of the notion that disorder should be able to be combined with another disorder to create something bigger.
I hope my response is better than "drop whatever you are doing and go do a PhD in math before you can understand the beauty of math".
Parent
Re:Explain the beauty? (Score:5, Funny)
- I for one welcome our very hard mathematics doing overlords
- I for one welcome our new bionic monkey overlords
In Soviet Russia the same league isn't even in THEM!!!!Parent
Re:sci-fi pondering (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:sci-fi pondering (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:How long until.... ? (Score:4, Funny)
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