A monkey who controls a video game with his mind

[Chaos' lil bro Order]

Very interesting clip about a scientist who mapped neuron cell firing patterns in a monkey's brain while the monkey was playing a simple video game. The scientist then makes a breakthrough discovery that you will see...


http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/94291/Monkey_Controls_Robotic_Arm_w_Brain.html



WHEN DONE WATCHING THE VIDEO READ BELOW HERE:

















I sort of wished the video clip showed more footage of the monkey's bare mind playing the video game at the end. It would have been nice to see if his skills were better, worse or the same the at playing with his bare mind VS. his joystick motor skills.
What do you think?

 

[denverdoc]

Unfortunately I couldn't get the replay, but these sorts of cyborg experiments are within the realm of bleeding edge med sci. There are a number of cyborgs out there overcoming devastating spinal injuries with the same or similar tech.

as to your other question? I think that's pretty interesting. If the brain was the perfect executor of whatever programme, its a done deal, get rid of anything bewteen it and actuators. A notion I'm not entirely believing of is muscle memory. There are neurns around but usually in a highly branched tree structure, and without interconnections, In other words all the control would appear to be upstream. Now is it possible for some fine tuning to be provided subcortically, No doubt.

 

[Chaos' lil bro Order]

as to your other question? I think that's pretty interesting. If the brain was the perfect executor of whatever programme, its a done deal, get rid of anything bewteen it and actuators. A notion I'm not entirely believing of is muscle memory. There are neurns around but usually in a highly branched tree structure, and without interconnections, In other words all the control would appear to be upstream. Now is it possible for some fine tuning to be provided subcortically, No doubt.

Yes. I think your analysis is spot on and very well written.