Robotic Arm Controlled By Monkey Thoughts

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."

Comments

Re:Tool use?

[glowimperial]

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.