Although it sounds unbelievable, scientists have found a way to use the mind to move objects. In animal experiments, they were able to harness the monkey's brain waves to "will" a robotic arm to move, opening up the possibility that one day paralyzed people may be able to move prosthetic limbs simply with the power of their minds.
"It was an amazing sight to see the robot in my lab move, knowing that it was being driven by signals from a monkey brain at Duke (University)," study co-author Mandayam Srinivasan, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a statement. "It was as if the monkey had a 600-mile-long virtual arm."
Researchers used "microwires" implanted in the brains of two monkeys to monitor electrical activity as the animals moved their arms and hands. As the monkeys moved, their brain waves were fed to a robotic arm, which in turn mimicked the animals' movement. The researchers were able to send the brain signals over the Internet to trigger movement in a robotic arm at another location. What was once thought to be in the "realm of science fiction" is now closer to reality, Dr. Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi of Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, Illinois, writes in an editorial accompanying the report.
Nature November 6, 2000; 408:305-306, 361-365.