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Human Tests of Mind-Controlled Artificial Arm To Begin
kkleiner writes "The world's first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex. Last week APL announced it had been awarded a $34.5M contract with DARPA, which will allow researchers to test the neural prosthetic in five individuals over the next two years."
Excellent! First article I see after watching this. 2027 is only 17 years away!!! :D
Do I really need to say anything else?
... we can rebuild him!
I for one welcome our new Doc Oc overlords.
I notice it's called the "Luke Arm". Okay, so Luke only lost a hand, but still...
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
haha a joint project.
This isn't new. Look at this from the 60's -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HofoK_QQxGc/
* Carthago Delenda Est *
They should use at least one 15 year old boy in the test group. That way it is sure to get a good work out...
/me ducks
What would happen if there was a malfunction and the current levels going into the brain for sensor feedback were unregulated?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This technology is clearly very cool, but there's two major hurdles to overcome before everyone's running around with one of these.
1. Controlling the device. Currently scientists/doctors control these brain computer interfaces (BCIs) by implanting electrodes into the patient's brain and finding neurons which code for particular movements (arm up or ring finger down). As the output device gets more complicated, like the arm here, doctors need to find more and more neurons to represent each degree of freedom of the output device.
2. Quality of neural recordings degrade with time. The current shelf life of the electrode arrays used in these experiments is ~1-2 years because after implantation, the brain's immune system rejects the device and neurons which code useful information die or move elsewhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_electrode_implants
I was thinking of The Terminal Man. Which is in charge? The brain or the arm?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I love this stuff because people who lost limbs or are paralyzed can become fully functional if it comes to pass! This sort of thing inspires great hope. Still I think about strange mad scientist applications...
If an electrical connection can control an arm, how much longer until you can control a whole body?
Since its an electrical connection, it could also be a wireless connection so you could control things at a distance.
If you had a computer, it could control the body too.
If someone goes brain dead or a coma, a computer could use that body like a robot with the right wiring and WIFI.
Or what might happen is that it doesn't use people... The setup may use an animal instead.
Who wants a monkey butler with the brain of a computer? How about a spy cat?
I don't expect those things to actually happen because people have morality, but they could be possibilities. I think its more likely that robot bodies will be built by people, but this technology makes you wonder what strange things are possible.
God spoke to me.
You have got to wonder why the Pentagon is involved. I "get" the obvious benefit to soldiers maimed in battle, but I'm cynical enough to think there must be a deeper desire to create "super-soldiers". Soldiers with artifical limbs that are more powerful and protective than human tissue obviously is. Soldiers who can fire a weapon just by thinking about it. Someone at the Pentagon may have watched "Robo-cop" one too many times. Lets hope they keep this medical - the alternative is just a little too frightening in my opinion.
Meus subcriptio est nocens Latin quoniam bardus populus reputo is sanus callidus
In Soviet Russia, arm controls you.
Takes self lovin to a whole new level.
This is just the first step, the next step will be interfacing a person's brain into a device for processing data, ie. A cyber brain. The first once will be about the size of a iPhone, but will be external and wirelessly connected to the brain implants, eventually the size will shrink where it will make sense to mount the thing inside of the head.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Everybody must have seen this video on TED:
http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html
If you can read the electrical impulses non-intrusively and with a lightweight headgear, and then use an adaptive algorithm to learn an individual's 'fingerprint' brainwave patterns, you can easily use the technology to control everything from powered wheelchairs to those cool animatronic prosthetics developed by the Japanese. Of course, you will also need some corrective algorithms so that empathically generated signals do not start to control the hardware ;)
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I was wondering about that ever since watching the robotic prosthetics on NHK and especially the said TED video. Would it be possible to tap into nerves on a patch of skin (e.g. where the missing appendage should have been) and 'train' the brain to read impulses there, rather than directly meddle with it surgically?
Sci-fi time.
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I’m one step closer to getting a super strong left arm; with a Cigarette lighter inside the thumb; fold away bottle opener; phone on the palm of my hand; and an electric screwdriver inside the ring finger.
Rocket Surgeon.
Does the arm cost 6 Million dollars, or do we get a full set for that amount?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man
So what if for some reason, I just decide to start to think about some pornographic material in public? Will that trigger the reaction that usually comes with this kind of thought?
I love the work in this field but Modular Prosthetic Limb or 'MPL' doesn't really fit the usage. Functional Arm Prosthetic or 'FAP' might be better.
"What? I thought we agreed on total body prosthesis, now lose the arm okay!"
Practice on a hot dog first.
Welcome to the future.
I know it's been a long road for some, and far too delayed for others, but the future is here. Alas, I regret to inform you that a complete direct neural interface is still a ways off, and neural replication far beyond. The reaper will still take his due for us all.
But a toast to all those who helped haul humanity into the future, kicking and screaming all the way. I only wish I could have helped more.
I, for one, welcome our new limbed overlords -- better than the last bunch by an arm (and possibly a leg)!
your proposition does not only make sense, but is even used in other experiments or products. Earlier prosthetic arms read signals from nerves and remaining fragments of muscles (mentionned in TFA). Also the HAL exoskeletton predicts which motion to assist by reading nerves and muscle.
BUT all this requires functionning nerves.
according to TFA, this artificial arm is intended for quadrplegic patients (with whom no useful brain impulse controls anything below the neck, except the main respiratory muscle)
for the intended patient, brain-computer-interfaces are the only way to go.
Also, a nerve requires a connexion to a muscle to function properly. You can't just put an electrode on it to read the signal. If the limb is missing, the nerve is un connected and dies of or degrades. That's why another artificial limb is mentionned to require renervation of muscles.
The golden target for non-quadraplegic patients would probably be to design which, to the body, exactly look like what the nerves grow onto, so the body will naturally make synapses to link the artificial limb.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Thanks to the plasticity of the brain and modern technology (not to mention where we're apparently going), it is entirely possible to shove organic-friendly electrodes into many parts of the brain and slowly learn how to "output" to them and understand the significance of "input".
This (output) was successfully tested on a man who was completely paralyzed and given the power to use a cursor on a computer and "push" a button. It took him a while to accomplish and the "how" is a little sketchy, but it certainly can be done on an unhampered individual.
It won't be too long before people will be able to opt into networking their brain wirelessly to their peers and become meta-minds. I'm surprised no one's already trying it.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Can you use this for additional limbs?
I currently (touch wood) have 2 arms, but having a third or even fourth would be great.
Could our brains handle the input for additional limbs, and is our skeleton adaptable enough to support the additional weight and torque?
So many things that "they" say "there's no such thing" about are coming to pass in our lifetimes: lotions that grow hair, aphrodisiacs, invisibility, losing fat from only one part of your body, and now telekinesis. And if you confront someone that it's now possible, they say "Oh, liposuction's not the same thing AT ALL. I meant losing fat from only one of your body BY EXERCISE."
Well, actually, no, that's not what you said. You said there's no such thing as losing fat from one part of your body, period. Same for monoxodil, Viagra, cloaking, etc. It's all coming to pass, contrary to your predictions, and you're changing the evaluation criteria so that you won't seem to have been proven wrong. Don't blame the messenger for your own lack of imagination.
This is telekinesis with equipment. And if it can happen locally, and the end of a limb, it can happen remotely via radio control. Oh brave new world that has such inventions in it!
I'm not even going to try to read TFA. All I can think of is Dr. Strangelove.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
How long it has taken, I remember reading on /. for the first time in 2001 about a monkey they hooked up to some robotic arm and used a wire mesh interface for his brain which had been peeled back...to do experiments with moving the robotic arm.
We are now 10 years later and finally they are going to test this using humans....took long enough, especially with all the considerable advantages this could have for society....
This is the only problem I find, either not enough funding for the important things, or too much red tape to get the project going.
Don't know which was which with this one, but I guess now any MS patients might have a chance at some normalcy with life....if they can perfect this technology...