Devices Controlled by the Brain May Be Possible
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Scientists who trained a monkey to move a mechanical arm using thought alone said Tuesday that experiments in Parkinson’s disease patients showed the technique might work in humans too. Electrodes implanted in the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients transmitted signals that might someday be used to operate remote devices, the team at Duke University Medical Center reported.
The team gave patients a videogame to play while the electrodes sent their signals from within the brain. A computer analyzed the signals and was able to predict the patients’ arm motions.
