Brain Interface Lets Monkeys Control Prosthetic Limbs 208
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.)
Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PLEASE tell me it makes them type faster (Score:2, Insightful)
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=567543&cid=23585235 [slashdot.org]
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.
Re:Explain the beauty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Monkey's opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:sci-fi pondering (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Explain the beauty? (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
Re:God hates amputees... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:3, Insightful)
So go ahead and build your cybernetic superhumans to do your bidding, but you might have to sign a contract that says you'll do the bidding of the US government, too.
Re:Explain the beauty? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And just like that... (Score:2, Insightful)
If this technology ever makes it to humans, it will only be after HUMAN experiments are done. Of course, the frauds who call themselves vivisectionists will say that "We couldn't have achieved the human version without first torturing - sorry - 'experimenting' on monkeys", but the first human version will fail, guaranteed. They will be EXPERIMENTING on humans, until they find out what works, as simple as that.
This bullshit is all over the news because 'those in power' want to normalise these atrocities, and even have the gall to show video of this poor animal being tortured.
Don't tell me, having invasive brain surgery and electrodes inserted into your brain has no after effects, i.e. PAIN. And I'm sure they just magically found the RIGHT part of the brain to insert the electrodes into, the first time they did it, right? I mean, it's not as if they've tortured hundreds of monkeys with this monstrous violence, in order to find which part of their brains controls their hands, no sirree...
Perhaps you should ask yourselves - "Why am I incapable of feeling the suffering of others, and why is that not a problem?"
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.
Prosthetics Don't Have to be Replacements (Score:3, Insightful)
The really cool thing that they're totally missing is that prosthetic limbs aren't limited to replacements.
Research has shown that the brain has the ability to handle additional limbs and/or senses. So if an amputee can learn to control a replacement arm, then a normal person could also learn to control an extra pair of arms. The neat thing is that the brain would just adapt to it and it would seem natural.
Re:And just like that... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Animal 'research' is a fraud. Which is why we don't have a cure for cancer yet."
I'm not sure I see the connection between these 2 thoughts. Animal research is a fraud, therefore we don't have a cure for cancer. That just doesn't logically make a coherent argument. Maybe we just have not been able to find a cure for cancer yet because its a very complex problem. What does the cure for cancer have to do with animal research?
"And why idiots like you still believe that 'AIDS' is caused by 'HIV', and blindly parrot whatever the MSM tells you..."
OK Dr. Anonymous, tell me, what is AIDS caused by?
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.
Re:Forget Replacement Limbs... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure that's wrong.
We extend our mental maps to include vehicles, devices and tools that we operate on a regular basis. Believe me, some of us even feel pain when we ding our car on something. Some even feel pain if they get shot in a video game.
The fact that many people can be trained to see with their _tongue_ means the brain is very adaptable.
The Seeing Tongue:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_9_160/ai_78681631
Just because you start seeing with your tongue does not mean you lose sight in your eyes. So I do not believe that we are limited to controlling 4 limbs. When people use a tool they are skilled in, that tool becomes an extension of their body - and it does not even have to be physically connected to their body - ask people who do stunts with RC helicopters, or play FPS/RTS games.
Once you practice enough, it becomes learnt and integrated into your brain, you no longer think "Ah I must press this to do X", you just think "I need to go here" and you do whatever it takes to get it done.
A skilled typist does not think of each key stroke independently, the typist just thinks of the phrase (or sees stuff to type) and all the 8 fingers and 2 thumbs get it done. So controlling more than 4 limbs shouldn't be a huge problem.
However, just like when you concentrate on something a lot, say drawing an intricate design, you may lose awareness of what's going on with your little toe (until something significant happens to it, or even is about to happen to it - incoming object via peripheral vision - in which case the rest of your brain brings it to your attention).