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Single Neuron Wired To Muscle Un-Paralyzes Monkeys
GalaticGrub writes "A pair of paralyzed monkeys regained the ability to move their arms after researchers wired individual neurons to the monkeys' arm muscles. A team of researchers at the University of Washington temporarily paralyzed each monkey's arm, then rerouted brain signals from a single neuron in the motor cortex around the blocked nerve pathway via a computer. When the neuron fired above a certain rate, the computer translated the signal into a jolt of electricity to the arm muscle, causing it to contract. The monkeys practiced moving their arms by playing a video game."
"Monkeys learn to play video games." I actually think that's more amazing.
Currently hooked on AMP
Yes. I offer Wikipedia as proof.
"Who's the grad student who had to break those monkeys spines?"
The subjects were actually grad students costumed as monkeys.
Lab monkeys are too valuable to use.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
No one broke the monkeys' spines. The article states that the spinal neurons innervating the wrist muscles were temporarily blocked using a local anesthetic. What's particularly amazing about this study is that the monkeys were able to quickly learn to control their wrists using the cortical neurons that the computer was monitoring, even if those neurons were not involved in control of the wrist before paralysis.
I'm a friend of the paper's author and am certain that neither the researchers nor any sane review board would have allowed monkeys to be permanently injured to perform this study; it just wouldn't be necessary.