Monkeys Control Robotic Arms Via Internet
Curious George prefers eating bananas, but playing with robots will do to pass the time. A team of scientists at Duke University took the world by surprise in 2003 when it successfully used monkeys to control robotic arms with only their brains. Don't be surprised, but the Duke team just one-upped itself.
Implanting electrodes into the monkeys' brains, the researchers were able to train the primates to move robotic legs in this iteration of their experiments. Nothing special there, right? Well, the new wrinkle that they presented at this year's Neuroscience Conference was the monkeys' ability to movethe robotic legs from thousands of miles away, with the primates and robotic limbs linked only by the Internet! While the monkeys were at the conference in San Diego, they moved the legs, which happened to across the Pacific at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto, Japan.
In 2005, the Duke scientists announced that their original work caused the monkeys' brain cells to adapt. Even though the 2003 experiment showed that the monkeys could control the robotic arms as if they were moving their own limbs, it was inconclusive as to whether the monkeys' brain cells were changing in response to the task. The study two years later definitively proved that the primate brain is very adaptable, which suggests that the human brain is much the same.
If the human brain can adapt to using similar technology, then its significance for the disabled is unparalleled. Should the brain be as adaptable as the 2005 work intimates, it would allow the handicapped to experience greater independence and self-sufficiency by using these brain-operated devices to control robotic assistants or limbs. Want to know more? Check out back issues of the journal Neuroscience. Until then, let's hope these monkeys have a less mischievous inner child than George.
From New Scientist (via Engadget)
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