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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."
Who's the grad student who had to break those monkeys spines?
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But can you teach them to type??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
"Monkeys learn to play video games." I actually think that's more amazing.
Currently hooked on AMP
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. Blurst of times! Stupid monkey!
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
Amazing! This is truly a wonderful time to be a monkey.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Certainly they may be jumping for joy. Though there is more to it than just wiring an electrode to a muscle before the fat lady can sing again.
A functional limb without any sense of its location in relation to the body is a problem, one without feeling is also a problem. Did they think about electrodes for everything else the nervous system is responsible for too?
they mounted a scratch monkey first.
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien
The researchers who published this should have 'Correlation is not causation' written in giant billboards in front of their houses.
Just 2 monkeys regained movement after the experiment does not mean that rerouting brain signals past blocked nerve pathways using a single neuron controlled by a computer did anything at all. They should have waited until they had ruled out other possibilities, like divine intervention, before publishing results. For shame!
Seems ripe for exploitation...
"...Quit hitting yourself! Quit hitting yourself..."
--Edward Dassmesser
Can a human control a monkey arm?
If so, can we control its entire body?
If so, can we do it remotely, through a wire to a cell phone.
If so, how long until someone decides to use monkeys as freedom fighters?
Yes, science should never go down this path, but hey, it is still possible to look down the paths
God spoke to me.
Whoever tagged this article "shockthemonkey" is awesome.
Odd note, but monkeys seem to have a preference for holding down the s key on american keyboard layouts.
Everything will be taken away from you.
They have their specialization and you have yours.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
This article explains everything.
They can make the monkey punch himself, that would be funny as hell.
Where's the video of the mokeys playing video games with the bionic nerves?
That explains those WoW players flinging poop at me.
As opposed to the mechanical prosthetics that feed information back?
Now we can reuse stuff that's already built in.
This really bodes bad for humans and Gaming.
I mean really, a chimp can play anything ea games puts out with a fricking brain block in place...
Oh the shame.... //starts flinging excrement on c&c 3 games
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
It's certainly true that proprioception (the ability to sense joint location) and sensation of muscle tension are useful feedback systems in coordinating limb movements. It's well known in the field (I'm a neuroscientist), however, that several neurological conditions rob patients of these sensations and they're still able to move their limbs effectively (though not perfectly). I'd guess that a patient who was paralyzed wouldn't mind being able to move their arms again, even if they couldn't feel where they were without looking.
Am I the only one who's more interested in the medical significance of this, instead of the silly aspect of monkey-gaming? Holy crap guys, use your brains.
This means that we have the potential to repair neural damage, potentially severe damage as well!
I see particular use with pacemakers. Rather than just pulse the heart at a given frequency, read what the brain wants the heart to do, and do that! You could do the same thing for the lungs as well, although I'm not sure how often someone who damages that nerve makes it to the hospital in time.
Other use could be with amputation victims. Helping restore function to reattached appendages/digits, or controlling prosthesis...
I wonder if, further down the line, it would be possible to do this to sensory nerves as well, not just motor control/response...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Right, because permanent damage was done to the monkeys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromuscular-blocking_drugs
Trolly troll-troll!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
That site is real, isn't it? For the first few minutes of reading I convinced myself that it was just a funny hoax site, but the deeper I went into it the more scared I became...
Would it be irony if I prayed to God to free us from religion? I still don't have that whole irony thing down yet.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Odd note, but monkeys seem to have a preference for holding down the s key on american keyboard layouts.
Apparently, grad students will write a thesis about anything...
Hmmmm... that would also mean there needs to be two way communication, not just from the motor cortex to the muscle but nerves and paths back for the feedback. I am going to guess that the former is much easier than the latter.
So they like to run backwards while firing in an FPS? Makes sense to me :)
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
DUDE, I'd totally give up all of the feeling in my hands for robotic claws. Hell I'd give up all feeling for a robot Chassis. In fact giving up all feeling is a plus. Who needs to feel when you hug your loved ones when you could have the option of not feeling as you crush city hall?
I wouldn't be too sure. This is just the latest in a long string of research findings that point toward an astounding degree of neural plasticity in adults. At this point, if I had to guess, I'd say that wiring one sensory nerve from the general area back to a single neuron would end up restoring a noticeable degree of "feeling".
'Cause you know, neurons that fire together wire together.
cogito ergo dubito
Next up, getting them to dance. Dance monkey boy, dance...
> the computer translated the signal into a jolt of electricity to the arm muscle
Ah, so these are actually *cyborg* monkeys now.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I just got my ass handed to me by "1337_bananaz" in Counter-Strike. Looks like we have our culprit right here.
You've never had a blow job, have you?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Yeah, but do you want a tireless monkey/robot arm capable of launching poo vast distances? My god man, the horror. :-P
Talk about your Weapons of Mass Defecation!!
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
this slashdot after all
Right, this is great and all, but what game did they play to show off these skills?? If it was spore, they probably spent less time "practicing moving their arms" and more time "on phone with EA support"/"in line at store refunds counter"... c'mon, lets report on the *facts* here slashdot!
You find it terrible because you know what your leg is supposed to feel like. The point your parent poster was making is that there are people who do not know what their leg feels like in normal conditions. This of course being due to the fact that their leg doesn't work in normal conditions.
The fact that you even relate the two is asinine.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Well I for one welcome our new Single Neuron Simian Overlords
I don't have a sig.
Wow.
Motion tracking, monkey-brain driven, automated excrement flinging, lawn fertilizing, and home security device. Is that patentable??
That's the funniest thing I've heard all week! :-P
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They were made paralyzed by "scientists" aka torturers/mutilators. That's an important distinction.
It really amazes me that we still allow this kind of "research" on sentient beings, who are well aware of themselves and their surroundings.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Somehow I have a hard time believing that a monkey who's trying to figure out why he's half-paralyzed would be even remotely interested in "playing video games."
This seems to me to be an experiment that's pushing the bounds of ethics.
A friend of mine happened to work in the Primate dept. at Santa Cruz in the 1960s when they inherited the Harry Harlow rhesus monkeys used in the famous 1950s isolation experiments. They were totally psychologically screwed up for as long as they lived. While I'm not an animal rights extremist, the sort of experiment described in the OP makes me uncomfortable. If humans were involved in such an experiment, they'd be able to know what was happening to them. But monkeys being "temporarily paralyzed," while it may not harm them physically, seems likely to have some psychological effects that I think could justifiably be called cruel.
Call me sadistic, but the best lay I've ever had wouldn't touch walking right through white house security as the bullets bounce off me. And when I garb Bush with my metal claws he won't break free. Because I'll be made of metal. And robots are strong.
Cluster fsck? Dude, just wait for luster to port over to a ZFS backend. Then, no more fsck EVER! I love Sun Microsystems! I am the Lizard King!
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
And Dick Cheney becomes president. Not only are you a nut, but you aren't even a smart nut.
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