The Guardian

The Guardian (London) - Final Edition

October 6, 2011 Thursday

Brain implant could help paralysed people regain movement and feeling: Monkeys moved avatar arm by thought alone Researchers hope to show device at World Cup 2014

BYLINE: Ian Sample Science correspondent

SECTION: GUARDIAN HOME PAGES; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 559 words

A brain implant that allows monkeys to move an avatar's arm and feel objects in a virtual world has been demonstrated for the first time.

The animals used the device to control the arm by thought alone, and feel the texture of the objects it touched through electrical signals sent directly to their brains.

Researchers built the system to help paralysed people regain the use of their arms and legs while feeling the objects they touched and the ground they walked on.

Without any sensation of touch it would be easy for people to crush or drop objects they were trying to grasp, or misjudge the terrain underfoot and stumble, the scientists said.

Miguel Nicolelis, who led the research team at Duke University in North Carolina, said the technology was a milestone in his group's bid to restore natural movement and fine control to paralysed people.

Nicolelis is working with colleagues at the Technical University in Munich to build a whole-body "exoskeleton" that can move people's paralysed limbs in response to brain activity picked up by the implant.

"The patient will be able to use their brain to control their movement, but they could also get sensations back from their legs, arms and hands," said Nicolelis.

"We are looking to have a demonstration of this in time for the World Cup in 2014. When the Brazilian team walks on to the field, we want them accompanied by two quadriplegic teenagers who will walk on to the pitch and kick the ball using this technology."

Nicolelis, who was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, said the challenge was "like the Brazilian moonshot".

While a prototype exoskeleton might be more conspicuous than most patients would like, it will be quiet and made of lightweight materials.

"Even the first generation is not going to be like Robocop," Nicolelis said.

Writing in the journal Nature, Nicolelis describes a series of experiments in which monkeys learned to perform tasks on a computer in exchange for a reward of fruit juice.

In the first experiments the monkeys used a joystick to move a virtual arm on the computer screen in front of them. The screen displayed three identical images, each a circle within a circle.

As the virtual hand moved over each, the joystick vibrated to convey one of three different "textures".

Using trial and error, the monkeys worked out that they received some juice when they placed their virtual hand in the centre of a circle with a certain texture.

In the second round of experiments, the monkeys switched over to the brain implant.

This time, they moved the virtual arm by thoughts, which were picked up by wires inserted into the motor cortex region of their brains. The electrical activity of between 50 and 200 brain cells controlled the arm's movements.

Nicolelis calls the device a brain-machine-brain interface, because it records brain activity relating to movement while sending information on texture back into the brain.

He said: "The remarkable success with non-human primates is what makes us believe that humans could accomplish the same task much more easily in the near future.

"We hope that in the next few years this technology could help to restore a more autonomous life to many patients who are currently locked in without being able to move or experience any tactile sensation of the surrounding world."

Captions:

Monkeys controlled the arm on a computerised avatar by thought alone

LOAD-DATE: October 6, 2011

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper