Mind Controlled Robot

World's first mind-controlled robot wiggles its fingers with the power of thought.

17:10 18 February 2016

The world's first mind-controlled robot gives accident victims, stroke patients and amputees a hope to achieve a better quality of life.

 

In a video, a volunteer who was fitted with 128 electrodes in his brain, was seen wiggling the robot arm's artificial finger. Although the unnamed volunteer was not missing an arm, the electrodes helped pinpoint the origin of his epileptic seizures. The researchers used these to map the parts responsible for moving each finger.

 

Professor Nathan Crone, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said: "We believe this is the first time a person using a mind-controlled prosthesis has immediately performed individual digit movements without extensive training.

 

"The technology goes beyond available prostheses, in which the artificial digits moved as a single unit to make a grabbing motion like one used to grip a tennis ball."

 

Graduate student Guy Hotson, who led the study, said: "The electrodes used to measure brain activity gave us better resolution of a large region of cortex than anything we've used before and allowed for more precise spatial mapping in the brain.

 

"This precision is what allowed us to separate the control of individual fingers."