Move a wheelchair only with the strength of mind it is something that can be done, at least in monkeys, according to US scientists say in the journal “Scientific Reports”.
They have achieved with wireless technology Brain-Machine-Interface (BMI), through implants in the brain. Scientists believe that this is an option in the future to get some mobility to people suffering total paralysis. However, independent experts estimate that before reaching that point is still much research and development work done.
The team of scientists headed by Miguel Nicolelis, University of Medicine Duke, in Durham (North Carolina), implanted two rhesus macaques electrodes in different brain areas where orders are given movement. The not paralyzed, healthy animals were placed for the experiment in a box on wheels.
Initially, this chair wheeled robot was taken to a container with grapes without your intervention. The monkeys quickly learned to move themselves the wheelchair using brain activity patterns translated via BMI order to reach the bowl with grapes. And eventually, they improved control over the vehicle.
“The results show that in the future, BMI implanted in the brain may provide mobility throughout the body people with severe paralysis,” Nicoelis and colleagues conclude.
The electrodes for BMI have been implanted in people not only externally on the skin of the head, but also in the brain. But above all to “lean” neural impulses of movement of the hand and fingers and these are moved to move a joystick or a prosthetic arm.
Experts believe a breakthrough that now, for the first time, has been translated into a movement of the whole body the brain known as moving the wheelchair.
“What is new is that the apparatus (chair) moves, which did not have before any representation in the cortex,” said Gabriel Curo expert neurophysics hospital Berliner Charité German. Curo expressed reservations with the fact that monkeys used for the study were not paralyzed, as it can not be ruled also sensory neural impulses had contributed, even if minimally, movement, eg arm. This point is something that US investigators want to continue studying.
Professor Alexander Gail, an expert in neuroscience at the University of Gottingen, progress mainly occurs in wireless transmission, an important event for both invasive interventions BMI as for neuroprótesis. “Really great when the technology will be so small that it can be completely under the skin.”
At the moment it is unknown to what extent patients leave these electrodes implanted in the brain. “That completely patient and risk assessment depends,” says Curo, whose team works with implants in the skin of the head.
No comments:
Post a Comment