Monkeys Made Smarter With Prosthetic Device

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Monkeys Made Smarter With Prosthetic Device

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 14, 2012 @10:32AM from the brain-damaged-coke-monkeys dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have successfully restored and, in some cases, enhanced decision-making ability in brain-damaged monkeys on cocaine by connecting a prosthetic device to their brains. 'In the study, the scientists trained five monkeys to match multiple images on a computer screen until they were correct 70 to 75 percent of the time. First, an image appeared on the screen, which the animals were trained to select using a hand-controlled cursor. The screen then went blank for up to two minutes, followed by the reappearance of two to eight images, including the initial one, on the same screen. When the monkeys correctly chose the image they were shown first, the electronic prosthetic device recorded the pattern of neural pulses associated with their decision by employing a multi-input multi-output nonlinear (MIMO) mathematical model, developed by researchers at the University of Southern California. In the next phase of the study, a drug known to disrupt cognitive activity, cocaine, was administered to the animals to simulate brain injury. When the animals repeated the image-selection task, their decision-making ability decreased 13 percent from normal. However, during these "drug sessions," the MIMO prosthesis detected when the animals were likely to choose the wrong image and played back the previously recorded "correct" neural patterns for the task. According to the study findings, the MIMO device was exceedingly effective in restoring the cocaine-impaired decision-making ability to an improved level of 10 percent above normal, even when the drug was still present and active.'"

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Applications? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 10:36 · Score: 2, Funny

Is there a place that would benefit from smarter crackheads?
1. Re:Applications? by sjames · 2012-09-14 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  Wall Street?
2. Re:Applications? by History's+Coming+To · 2012-09-14 13:07 · Score: 1
  
  No, but I'd imagine this might have applications in people who have suffered brain injuries. It sounds like they can essentially use some kind of resonance effect, so if this can be replicated for people who can physically walk but can "no longer remember how" then it's potentially useful. However, if they're simply playing back a pre-recorded action then there is limited application, it's not going to revive lost speech centers for example, and extensive physiotherapy which helps to develop new pathways to pick up from lost ones is arguably a better long-term solution.
  
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3. Re:Applications? by Hal_Porter · 2012-09-14 22:25 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Well it might improve the editing on slashdot.
  
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4. Re:Applications? by Jeng · 2012-09-15 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  it's not going to revive lost speech centers for example
  
  The device is able to read neural activity, and playback neural activity. Lets say the speech center is lost, when this technology is a little more mature you could pump speech center communications to the different parts of the brain while offloading the actual processing to a device.
  Looks like it we might just see cyberneticly augmented intelligence in our lifetimes after all.
  
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5. Re:Applications? by History's+Coming+To · 2012-09-15 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  We've arguably got it already. Mobile phones "augmenting" pub quiz teams are a big problem.
  
  I did wonder about speech, but if you're simply playing back the neural activity that generates "hello" then you have to tell the device to do it, and giving the command "say(hello)" might as well lead to a speech synthesizer. Walking, however, is a repetitive activity that could be controlled by this for minutes or hours with one command.
  
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The implications of brain stimulation by Dwedit · 2012-09-14 10:40 · Score: 1

This thing is replaying back some kind of message to affect what your brain is going to do.
So when is it going to be turned into a brainwashing device to make sure you love the Dear Leader?
1. Re:The implications of brain stimulation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 10:49 · Score: 1
  
  "I'll dial for both of us, Rick said, and led her back into the bedroom. There, at her console, he dialed 594: pleased acknowledgment of husband's superior wisdom in all matters. On his own console he dialed for a creative and fresh attitude toward his job, although this he hardly needed; such was his habitual, innate approach without recourse to Penfield artificial brain stimulation.
2. Re:The implications of brain stimulation by ilsaloving · 2012-09-14 11:24 · Score: 1
  
  For some reason I was expecting there to be something about galloping abs at the end.
3. Re:The implications of brain stimulation by Jeng · 2012-09-15 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  So when is it going to be turned into a brainwashing device to make sure you love the Dear Leader?
  
  Right after it is used on the criminally insane and pedophiles to make them productive members of society.
  
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That is unnecessarily cruel by 0xdeadbeef · 2012-09-14 10:42 · Score: 3, Funny

Just let them wear a suit and go to business school. It's what they really want.
1. Re:That is unnecessarily cruel by Ukab+the+Great · 2012-09-14 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  Until they drop out and write Hamlet.
2. Re:That is unnecessarily cruel by Bill_the_Engineer · 2012-09-14 13:59 · Score: 1
  
  Leela: I didn't know monkeys could cry.
  Guenter: They can't. It's all the hat.
  
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  These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
yessss by binarylarry · 2012-09-14 10:42 · Score: 4, Funny

Fuck sharks, I want hyper intelligent, semi retarded cocaine monkeys with lasers on their heads!

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1. Re:yessss by gewalker · 2012-09-14 12:35 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know, but it sounds that being paid to be a to do stuff like this would be pretty awesome too. Maybe I can make a career change and become a researcher too.
  Reading Flowers for Algernon or watching the movie Charlie could be considered research too.
2. Re:yessss by Daniel+Klugh · 2012-09-15 07:37 · Score: 1
  
  Or the Showtime version of Harrison Bergeron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film)
  
  --
  Daniel Klugh
Smarter or just less impaired? by icebike · 2012-09-14 10:45 · Score: 1

The feed back device didn't improve the monkey's intelligence, it simply undid some of the damage the crack did to them.
At best its a retraining aid, and its not clear if it had any long term effect after discontinuing the feedback.
Since each feedback profile was learned from the monkey itself, there's no indication that you could apply that pattern to
other monkeys, or the undamaged monkeys to make them learn quicker.
But hey, good on those researchers to induce brain damage with cocaine so that no physical harm needed to be done to the monkeys.
Ah, shucks, then the went and ruined it by two surgeries to implant and remove electrodes drilled thru the skull and cemented in place.

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1. Re:Smarter or just less impaired? by bbecker23 · 2012-09-14 11:44 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The feed back device didn't improve the monkey's intelligence, it simply undid some of the damage the crack did to them.
  Really? Not even going to RTFS?
  
  According to the study findings, the MIMO device was exceedingly effective in restoring the cocaine-impaired decision-making ability to an improved level of 10 percent above normal, even when the drug was still present and active.'"
  Emphasis mine. Your other points may be valid, but this technique certainly did more than just undo the effects of the drug.
  
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2. Re:Smarter or just less impaired? by marcosdumay · 2012-09-15 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  Except that "normal" here means what the control group did, after receiving the cocaine.
  It looks more like a mind backup (or control) tech than a mand amplifying one.
  
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Great News by lewko · 2012-09-14 10:47 · Score: 1, Funny

"Scientists have successfully restored and, in some cases, enhanced decision-making ability in brain-damaged monkeys on cocaine
So there may be hope for the Occupy movement after all!

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1. Re:Great News by Required+Snark · 2012-09-14 11:44 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  You've got it backwards. The Occupy movement has had a significant real world impact. It brought the issue of effective tax rates for the rich into the presidential race, including the obscenely low 15% tax rate paid by Romney.
  http://media.talkingpointsmemo.com/slideshow/mitt-romney-taxes
  
  Now that Mitt Romney's confirmed what we've long suspected about his effective federal tax rate -- "It's probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything" -- we have a fact worth contextualizing. Though it could easily be less, assume Romney effectively pays 15 percent in taxes on all his income to the federal government. How does he stack up to the rest of us, most of whom are regular wage earners? When you account for the fact that most people also pay payroll taxes, and don't enjoy enormous deductions, credits or other benefits, you see that Romney's making out about as well as a taxpayer who makes $50,000 a year. Not bad for a man whose net worth is estimated to be in the neighborhood of a quarter billion dollars.
  
  Meanwhile, the Republican controlled House has voted 33 times in 18 months to repeal Obamacare.
  http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/Republicans-Vote-to-Repeal-Obamacare--Again-and-Again.html
  
  Breaking news!! The House of Representative voted to repeal all of Obamacare – for the 33rd time.
  In a recurring political ritual, Republicans in the chamber denounced the law as a government takeover and said that all of it has to go. Then they backed up their statements with a vote.
  The action has virtually no chance of becoming law. The Democratic majority in the Senate is certain to block it. And if for some reason it does not, Obama has promised to veto it.
  
  So who is acting more like a troupe of cognitively impaired monkeys? I would bet that after so many failed attempts the monkeys would have given up and moved on to something more useful.
  Score: Monkeys 1, Republicans 0. It's not fair to compare either monkeys or Republicans to the Occupy movement because they are not playing in the same league.
  
  --
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2. Re:Great News by LordLimecat · 2012-09-14 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  So, its news that Republicans voted to repeal the ACA for the 33rd time (and it makes them retarded), but none of that applies to the Democrats voting to overturn that repeal bill for the 33rd time?
  I like the double standard, its the sort of thing that keeps one on their toes.
3. Re:Great News by SydShamino · 2012-09-14 12:50 · Score: 2
  
  Maybe you don't know how Congress works? No one has to "vote to overturn" the repeal bill - it dies automatically when it's never taken up by the Senate, the same as the last 32 times.
  
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4. Re:Great News by sjames · 2012-09-14 12:55 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The Democrat's action in that case is actually working. It isn't retarded to apply a successful strategy successfully multiple times.
Unintentional humor? by Carnildo · 2012-09-14 10:47 · Score: 4, Funny

There's just something about the phrase "decision-making ability in brain-damaged monkeys on cocaine"....

--
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1. Re:Unintentional humor? by kubusja · 2012-09-14 20:27 · Score: 1
  
  >There's just something about the phrase "decision-making ability in >brain-damaged monkeys on cocaine".... Potential applications in financial, military, law and media sectors are enormous....
Planet of the Apes by Ice+Station+Zebra · 2012-09-14 10:49 · Score: 2, Funny

George Taylor said, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
Distant memories by Frosty+Piss · 2012-09-14 10:50 · Score: 1

brain-damaged monkeys on cocaine
Iâ(TM)m pretty sure I saw that band back in the 80â(TM)s

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1. Re:Distant memories by Larryish · 2012-09-15 05:46 · Score: 1
  
  And they were all from "Da City Of Compton".
Let me get this straight by Eddy_D · 2012-09-14 10:56 · Score: 1

Brain damaged monkeys... High on cocaine. ... playing MMOs.... ... Are you sure its not April 1?

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1. Re:Let me get this straight by Eddy_D · 2012-09-14 10:57 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, MIMO... ok its slightly less ridiculous.
  
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  - I stole your sig.
2. Re:Let me get this straight by artor3 · 2012-09-14 11:49 · Score: 2
  
  Sounds like most of the people who show up in PUGs.
3. Re:Let me get this straight by drkim · 2012-09-14 12:27 · Score: 1
  
  Brain damaged monkeys, high on cocaine, playing MMOs, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
4. Re:Let me get this straight by Jeng · 2012-09-15 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  I thought the brain damaged cocaine monkeys played FPS's, not MMO's?
  
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this is your brain by circletimessquare · 2012-09-14 10:58 · Score: 4, Funny

(holds up egg)
this is your brain on drugs
(cracks egg in frying pan)
this is your brain on drugs on cybernetics
(hundreds of little robots swarm and deftly fuse the egg back together)
any questions?

--
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1. Re:this is your brain by Hal_Porter · 2012-09-14 22:34 · Score: 1
  
  And then the egg hatches into grey goo which swarms up his arm.
  
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Does this "prosthetic" look like a bowler hat? by conspirator23 · 2012-09-14 11:14 · Score: 1

I smell a patent infringement lawsuit from Professor Farnsworth!
1. Re:Does this "prosthetic" look like a bowler hat? by quenda · 2012-09-14 12:51 · Score: 1
  
  I smell a patent infringement lawsuit from Professor Farnsworth!
  I hope that Smelloscope is appropriately licensed. Since the Sonny Bono Head Act, patents from 3012 are indefinitely retrospective.
WTF? by mordejai · 2012-09-14 12:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Am I the only one that finds it disturbing that a scientific study gives a dangerous drug to primates in 2012?
1. Re:WTF? by jrumney · 2012-09-14 14:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes. The rest of us realise that controlled clinical administration of drugs has no relation to the hysteria surrounding street drugs, regardless of whether the substances are the same.
2. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 16:55 · Score: 1
  
  After the study those monkeys had a party like it was 1999.
3. Re:WTF? by Air-conditioned+cowh · 2012-09-14 19:19 · Score: 2
  
  Am I the only one that finds it disturbing that a scientific study gives a dangerous drug to primates in 2012?
  It's like feeding caviare to pigs! What a terrible waste.
4. Re:WTF? by martas · 2012-09-14 22:20 · Score: 1
  
  It's just cocaine. Not really dangerous in the quantities they're talking about.
  
  --
  weinersmith
Re:Read the 'research' paper... by wierd_w · 2012-09-14 12:14 · Score: 1

If you are proposing that the scientists should use humans instead, because humans can consent, and animals cannot, then by all means! Drive yourself down there and fill in the forms before the public notary, and get into the hospital gown.
If, however, you are just creaming out your ass because scientists are doing science, and it makes you feel 'ow swo bwad fwor de widdle monkwies', and would rather that humans live in the stone age than experiment on other lieforms to larn how living things work, and in so doing, push the boundries of scentific knowledge and medical technologies, then kind find a fire, pour gasoline all over yourself, and step into it.
Research grants by funkboy · 2012-09-14 12:30 · Score: 2

Just goes to prove that a sufficiently talented grant application writer can get a research grant for just about anything...
BTW, what happens when they give the monkeys THC and then turn on the device? Do they stop craving pop-tarts & crappy comedy movies or something?
Re:Read the 'research' paper... by Linkreincarnate · 2012-09-14 12:34 · Score: 1

Free Cocaine!
this is your life by circletimessquare · 2012-09-14 12:44 · Score: 1

(grey blank sheet)
this is your life with bacon
(scenes from rio carnival)

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intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So the moral is... by AngryDill · 2012-09-14 13:18 · Score: 1

...cocaine junkies should start watching more TV!

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Bowler hat by Denogh · 2012-09-14 13:40 · Score: 1

Can we get that in bowler hat form?
Let Me Be The First To Welcome Our New ... by littlewink · 2012-09-14 13:59 · Score: 1

prosthetically-enhanced cocaine-addicted monkey overlords!
Strictly speaking by inode_buddha · 2012-09-14 14:13 · Score: 1

Strictly speaking, a strap-on is also a prosthetic device. I wonder if anyone ever put one on a monkey?

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C|N>K
1. Re:Strictly speaking by stretch0611 · 2012-09-14 17:59 · Score: 1
  
  Personally, I find that idea pretty disgusting.
  But, as long as the monkey is willing to do it and you are not forcing him, I do not care what you are doing in the privacy of your own home.
  
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Re:If Only... by EdIII · 2012-09-14 15:41 · Score: 1

Don't worry. They'll make something for you soon. Be patient.
great name for a band by oheso · 2012-09-14 17:26 · Score: 1

"brain damaged monkeys on cocaine"
Re:Read the 'research' paper... by dinfinity · 2012-09-14 17:58 · Score: 1

Unless you're a Buddhist, there are probably billions of 'animals' that you couldn't care less about.
Most of us realize that drawing the line somewhere between amphibians and mammals and/or based on the ease of anthropomorphization is irrational.
Re:Such overwhelming compassion... by YttriumOxide · 2012-09-14 18:30 · Score: 1

This is more scientific FRAUD, committed by sociopaths who enjoy torturing animals.
What makes you assume the monkeys didn't thoroughly enjoy the experience?
I can say from experience that taking cocaine is not entirely unpleasant (I wouldn't do it again; but the two or three times I tried it, it was a lot of fun for a short period of time; followed by disappointment that the feelings go away so quickly)
And besides, even if it WAS committed by sociopaths who enjoy torturing animals, that doesn't make it scientific fraud (as long as they correctly recorded results and didn't distort anything).

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Re:Hasn't anyone ever used Cocaine? by YttriumOxide · 2012-09-14 18:41 · Score: 2

Hasn't anyone ever used Cocaine?
Two or three times, yes... but I decided it's really not for me. I find the "high" doesn't last long; and there was significant impairment in my ability to rationalise decisions (especially those relating to social behaviour - similar problem to alcohol but without the messiness and stumbling all over the place)

Those monkeys must have been damn near overdose, or given the drug at high doses over a long period of time to result in loss of cognitive functionality at that base level.
I don't think they actually CAUSED brain damage using cocaine. They simulated it using cocaine. See the bit I wrote above about impairment in my ability to rationalise.

That said, fuck the cocaine. Where's the damn control group where the regular monkeys used the prosthetic device to help them remember more quickly which decision to make? When you miss a control group that big, the study is hogwash.
I generally agree with you here. It does seem odd to skip the control group of monkeys that weren't given something to simulate brain damage. Especially since their results apparently showed these "damaged" monkeys performing better with the assistance of the device than they performed with neither the device nor the cocaine.

The effects of organic chemicals like cocaine are wildly unpredictable. Hell, Just like Caffeine helps coders code, so does cocaine (when taken in moderation) -- They're both stimulants.
In very light moderation, it might help; but large amounts of either is going to damage my coding. Being impulsive; not stopping to think about better ways to do things; etc. These effects come from both caffeine and cocaine, it's true; but caffeine is easier to moderate to a small dose in general (and legal - not that that bothers me for other substances I do like to take on rare occasions; but for something I use daily like caffeine, I'd be wary about replacing that with cocaine!)

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Journal by nomad-9 · 2012-09-14 21:02 · Score: 1

Caesar, one of our lab monkeys on cocaine with an electronically-enhanced brain, has escaped from the biotech facility and stole a truck full of our latest brain prosthetic devices and all our reserves of experimental hard drugs. He has liberated the zoo gorillas and baboons, and supplied them with electronic brain-enhancers and narcotics. The war on us humans has already begun and is raging as I'm writing this.
...
The end is near...We are dying...Crack-head monkeys have just broken into my office....Good bye, good bye, and God save us all..Aaaaaaargh..
Re:Read the 'research' paper... by drkim · 2012-09-14 21:48 · Score: 1

If you are proposing that the scientists should use humans instead, because humans can consent, and animals cannot, then by all means! Drive yourself down there and fill in the forms before the public notary, and get into the hospital gown.
If, however, you are just creaming out your ass because scientists are doing science, and it makes you feel 'ow swo bwad fwor de widdle monkwies', and would rather that humans live in the stone age than experiment on other lieforms to larn how living things work, and in so doing, push the boundries of scentific knowledge and medical technologies, then kind find a fire, pour gasoline all over yourself, and step into it.
Great post!
The thought that always crosses my mind when I read a label that says: NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS ...is always:
"Great. They're testing this stuff on ME."
Obligatory by AragornSonOfArathorn · 2012-09-15 03:54 · Score: 1

I, for one, welcome a Beowulf cluster of our retarded cyborg crackhead monkey overlords! Hot grits! Natalie Portman! etc.
Do they run Linux?

--
sudo eat my shorts
Re:Fuck these assholes by Jeng · 2012-09-15 04:07 · Score: 1

So next can we simulate brain damage in these researchers by feeding them cocaine?

Yea! That will teach them, force them to snort cocaine.

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They didn't become smarter by Hentes · 2012-09-15 04:36 · Score: 1

Reading the article this device sounds more like a memory extension than an intelligence booster. It just recorded the correct answers and played them back later. Still awesome, just not in a Planet of the apes kind of way.