Upping the Game on Mind-Controlled Robotics

Think brain control of one robotic arm is neat? Try controlling two arms at once. That is one of the tantalizing possibilities raised in recent Duke University research that involved enabling monkeys to control the movement of both arms on an avatar using just their brain activity.

The findings, published Nov. 6 in the journal Science Translational Medicine, advance efforts to develop bilateral movement in brain-controlled prosthetic devices for severely paralyzed patients.

It also might not be a stretch to think such advances might help in other areas of the medical device industry. Get rid of the need for implantable electrodes--a focus of University of Minnesota researcher--and medical device assembly workers might mind-control robots performing multiple tasks at the same time. Think the precision of robotics coupled with human creativity.

Bimanual movements in our daily activities -- from typing on a keyboard to opening a can -- are critically important," says senior author Miguel Nicolelis, MD, professor of neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine.

"Future brain-machine interfaces aimed at restoring mobility in humans will have to incorporate multiple limbs to greatly benefit severely paralyzed patients," Nicolelis said in a news release.

To figure out sufficient signals to allow for bimanual control on the brain-machine interface, Nicolelis and fellow researchers recorded nearly 500 neurons from multiple areas in both cerebral hemispheres of the monkeys' brains and studied large-scale cortical recordings.

The monkeys also required training, first using joysticks and then moving off the joysticks to moving the avatar arms without using their own arms. They only used their minds.

The technology required implanting electrodes in the monkeys' brains, and that has its own challenges.

Researchers, for example, have found that neurons start to form themselves around the electrodes, eventually distorting the signals. So biocompatibility is a future challenge.

And while the severely disabled might welcome having electrodes implanted in their brains if it means being able to walk or play the piano again, it is hard to envision average people opting for such an invasive procedure. 

Bin He, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) has found that mind-controlling a robotic arm without an electrode stuck in the brain is possible, but it requires extremely sophisticated readings and translations of electroencephalography (EEG) signals.

Chris Newmarker is senior editor of MPMN and Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker and Google+.