New wireless brain-machine interface allows monkeys to control wheelchair with their brain
04 Mar 2016
Scientists led by Duke University researchers have designed a new wireless brain-machine interface (BMI) that allows monkeys to control a wheelchair with their minds.
According to the study published in Nature's Scientific Reports, two rhesus monkeys received microelectrode arrays that were implanted in their brains, in areas that control limb movement and planning. The wireless BMI then translated their cortical activity to direct the speed and direction of the robotic wheelchair.
According to commentators, the research could eventually be used to help people who were paralysed get around, either with a high-tech wheelchair or more advanced robotic devices.
The monkeys were initially acquainted with the technology by having them driven around in the wheelchairs. The brain activity of the monkeys was recorded while this happened, and the information was eventually used to create an algorithm for instructions for steering the chair.
After these initial tests they then moved on to brain control to finally allow their simian test subjects to control the device on their own. Each monkey was then wheeled toward a bowl of fruit before them, with the animal's starting position in the room changing for different tests. The fruit continued to remain in the same position for each test.
Research conducted in recent years, has shown that "brain-machine interfaces" could bypass severed spinal cords and make limbs, prosthetic and otherwise, move on the brain's command.
Over repeated tries, Dr Miguel Nicolelis, senior author of the new paper, and his team listened in to the electrical activity in the monkey's brain as she wished the wheelchair to move toward a grape while researchers remotely moved the wheelchair forward. The researchers then programmed the wheelchair to respond to that predictable pattern of neural firing.
Finally, they set up a grape, after taking their hands off the remote control, allowed the wheelchair's "brain-machine interface" to listen and respond to the neural activity in the monkey's brain. As the monkey gazed at the enticing grape, the BMI detected the neural activity, and navigated over to the grape.
