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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday November 29 2017, @05:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-forsee-an-awkward-ER-visit-in-their-future dept.

Brain-computer interfacing for amputees:

A new study by neuroscientists at the University of Chicago shows how amputees can learn to control a robotic arm through electrodes implanted in the brain.

The research, published in Nature Communications, details changes that take place in both sides of the brain used to control the amputated limb and the remaining, intact limb. The results show both areas can create new connections to learn how to control the device, even several years after an amputation.

"That's the novel aspect to this study, seeing that chronic, long-term amputees can learn to control a robotic limb," said Nicho Hatsopoulos, PhD, professor of organismal biology and anatomy at UChicago and senior author of the study. "But what was also interesting was the brain's plasticity over long-term exposure, and seeing what happened to the connectivity of the network as they learned to control the device."
...
The researchers worked with three rhesus monkeys who suffered injuries at a young age and had to have an arm amputated to rescue them four, nine and 10 years ago, respectively. Their limbs were not amputated for the purposes of the study. In two of the animals, the researchers implanted electrode arrays in the side of the brain opposite, or contralateral, to the amputated limb. This is the side that used to control the amputated limb. In the third animal, the electrodes were implanted on the same side, or ipsilateral, to the amputated limb. This is the side that still controlled the intact limb.

The monkeys were then trained (with generous helpings of juice) to move a robotic arm and grasp a ball using only their thoughts. The scientists recorded the activity of neurons where the electrodes were placed, and used a statistical model to calculate how the neurons were connected to each other before the experiments, during training and once the monkeys mastered the activity.

What if you're not an amputee and just want extra limbs?

Karthikeyan Balasubramanian, et. al. Changes in cortical network connectivity with long-term brain-machine interface exposure after chronic amputation. Nature Communications, 2017; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01909-2


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @11:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @11:56AM (#602942)

    What if you're not an amputee and just want extra limbs?

    Say what? I can't even pat my head, rub my tummy, and sing Old Mc Donald simultaneously.

    Throw a robot arm into the mix and I would be dangerous.