Monkey Controls Hand with Brain Chips

By Alex in Animals & Pets, Robot, Science & Tech on Feb 25, 2012 at 12:43 pm


Image: China Daily

Hello, how do you do? Go ahead and shake hands with Jianhui the monkey, who controls a robotic hand through sensors implanted in its brain:

Zheng Xiaoxiang of the Brain-Computer Interface Research Team at Zhejiang University in Zijingang, China, and colleagues announced earlier this week that they had succeeded in capturing and deciphering the signals from the monkey's brain and interpreting them into the real-time robotic finger movements.

The two sensors implanted in Jianhui's brain monitor just 200 neurons in his motor cortex, Zheng says. However, this was enough to accurately interpret the monkey's movements and control the robotic hand.

Link

So, scientists are finally making cyborg monkeys. What could possibly go wrong?

Previously on Neatorama: Monkey Thinks Robot into Action


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  1. Gellner
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    Those look like very humane conditions…

  2. GJ
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 12:53 pm

    That is a sick all time low for the human race.

  3. Trevor
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 12:59 pm

    Gellner, GJ. I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking that this experiment is disgusting.

  4. Greyman
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    Mmmm, big surprise, the Chinese mistreating animals. That never happens. Oh wait, that always happens.
    How pointless and disgusting.

  5. javaman
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 1:29 pm

    I see we are farming out our animal experiments now. not only do we ship our jobs to china, but now also the inhumane practices. Yay! Globalization!

  6. zabo
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    Very sad post for you guys at Neatorama. Nothing “neat” about this awful experiment, please take a stand on this one, i am disgusted.

  7. catsvillage
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    OMGawd!!! this is disgusting and I don’t even like PETA but this is one they should be picketing… UGLY

  8. E-Sizzle
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 2:38 pm

    What Trevor and the rest said.

  9. gdw3
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 2:59 pm

    Awful. Another vote to take it down.

  10. cathy
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    OMG this is horrific!! NOT NEAT AT ALL. this is disgusting and horrible…poor miserable tortured monkey, this is awful :( (((((

  11. talby
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 6:37 pm

    I came here to say the same thing as cathy- NOT NEAT! NOT NEAT AT ALL! :( :( :(

  12. Lisa sinister
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 7:00 pm

    Poor animal– please be good guys and remove this :(

  13. AGFH
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 7:30 pm

    This is heartbreaking! I am no animal nazi by any means, but there is a limit!

  14. ignatius
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 7:43 pm

    Wow Neatorama, way to totally misjudge your audience. That is DISGUSTING. Of course the Chinese are continuing what we started, with brio, of course. They poison their own babies formula milk with melamine so why should torturing and maiming fellow primates bother them at all. Take this piece of glorification of horror down, it is repellant in the extreme.

  15. philf
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    Serious misjudgement of your inteneded audience, Neatorama. Not remotely neat. Unnecessary, cruel, repulsive. Please remove it from the site and think more clearly about your choice of posts in the future.

  16. partypooper
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 8:19 pm

    Hooray, for scientific research and medical progress! Horray, for fully functional prosthesis for HUMAN amputees! Sometimes the price of medical progress can look barbaric, but modern practices are incredibly humane. Especially when compared to how we came upon early medical discoveries, with HUMAN subjects.

    http://uploads3.wikipaintings.org/images/william-hogarth/the-reward-of -cruelty-1751.jpg

    We’re thankful for the “cruelty” of past scientists, even dependent on the outcome of that cruelty, but wholly ungrateful to those continuing the work under far more humane conditions and without human subjects. These scientists are trying to do good for amputees, trying to make a world of difference in their life. To call them sick torturers because they sedated a monkey and used a device to read its brain impulses is to be without any sense. Get a grip.

  17. How about...
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    Why experiment on a monkey instead of human being? Because they can dominate “lesser significant” creatures of much lower intelligence and force them into enslavement, that’s why!

    Hey people calling for this to be taken down… if you don’t see it, I guess it didn’t happen, huh?

  18. vet
    Feb 25th, 2012 at 8:57 pm

    i deployed for two tours of duty in iraq and lost my legs in a roadside bombing. i spent a lot of time learning about prosthetics while getting acquainted with the ones i now wear and i know that tests like this were implemented to make my prosthetics.

    i’m saddened that so many people would see me never walk again in order to prevent monkeys from being subjected to very moderate testing.

    humans undergo similar tests and there are no long term effects and the implanting procedure is very safe and sterile.

    but it’s okay i’ll just raise my three children from a the confines of a wheelchair.

  19. anonymous coward
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 1:49 am

    Seems much less horrific than the phantom limb experiments done a few decades earlier.

    Seems much less horrific than the cancer studies conducted here in the good ole united states. (You _do_ know how our anti-cancer drugs and treatments are tested, right?)

    It even seems much less horrific than cosmetics testing and with significantly better societal benefits.

    I can’t argue that the poor beast enjoyed it but there are much worse places to be born a monkey.

  20. daleofcourse
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 3:16 am

    ^ Are you really condoning this on the back of it being less disgusting than a different horrific experiment? This is outrageous and I think this article should be taken off Neatorama, it’s not neat, it’s foul.

    People should learn that abusing other creatures on our planet for self serving reasons is unacceptable.

  21. Sharyn
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 4:08 am

    Wow! What a disturbing photo. I’m really surprised so many people are calling for it to be removed just because they don’t like the subject. It’s happening whether you want to believe it or not. And no matter which side you come down on in the debate about animal testing – it doesn’t stop just because you ignore it.

  22. ted
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 6:01 am

    Incredibly disturbing image not alleviated by the impression that the monkey can “shake hands” with you. The result is horrifyingly banal.

    Not against improving life by science, but somebody needs to work on their marketing skills.

    @vet: You do know it is possible for people in wheelchairs to live productive lives?

  23. Sorin
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 9:25 am

    This entire outrage is based on peoples assumptions that these monkeys are being treated inhumanly without one shred of knowledge of the technology that actually goes into something like this. Similar technology is being used on humans right now and they are most definitely not withering in pain.

    These kind of experiments are already being done in the US for years now (at Duke University of example), and the technologies that they are facilitating to be developed would be revolutionary for not only amputees, but victims of paralysis, cerebellar disease, lou gehrig’s, etc…

    ted, I have never really argued against someone on the internet before, but your comment to vet has to be the most narrow minded and most saddening things I have ever heard. Engineers and scientists are devoting their lives to help improve the quality of living for others and you simply dismiss this by suggesting we continue to be satisfied by technologies that are more then 100 years old… now that is horrendous!!

  24. Sorin
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 10:21 am

    Apparently Neatorama doesn’t allow everyone’s opinion to be posted… I guess I will just go with the flow…

    Wow this is horrible! I hate how these scientists and engineers think they are better then everyone else and can do what they want to animals. I dont care what kind of revolutionary technologies these experiments will help create. I agree with ted, the therapeutic technologies we have now are more then good enough for us, crutches and wheelchairs FTW! Why bother for prosthesis that could help someone paralyzed regain a natural range of motion, or help someone who has ALS keep their muscles strong and functioning.

    Neatorama, please remove this image immediately, torturing monkeys, by implanting electronics similar to those used in humans, is not neat. Why dont you just post something nice like a story about a cake designer making Tardis shaped wedding cakes, or a new line of Dr. Who figurines please.

  25. Sorin
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 11:35 am

    I would like to retract my negative comments towards neatorama in my previous post. I mistook the fact that my post disappeared as censorship.

    Also, I really have nothing against the (however unproportional) number of Dr.Who posts on this site

  26. megs
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 2:51 pm

    I’m disgusted! Neatorama, this is horrifying!

  27. surferdude69
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 2:57 pm

    do people understand that the monkeys head is not severed from it’s body?

  28. shannonk
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    i agree, this is NOT neat. very upsetting.

  29. ted
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    Sorin.

    You obviously read my comment incorrectly. I didn’t object to the experimentation itself, just the 1950′s style vivisectionist feel they give it. I think they could have marketed it better. I thought my phrase horrifying banal nailed the impression on the head.

    As for my comment to vet, you really read it wrong.

    I took execption to the comment he made about raising his kids in a wheelchair. I had a relative who spent the last 20 years of his life in a wheelchair, and I felt his comment was insensitive. I think it’s great that he’s able to use prosthetics, but not everybody is.

    Next time, read the comments more closely before you label people.

  30. ted
    Feb 26th, 2012 at 8:14 pm

    surferdude69: that’s basically what I was getting at. The picture is done so poorly, it really gives the impression of cruelty that may not be the case.

  31. Sorin
    Feb 27th, 2012 at 7:02 am

    Ted,

    I see how I miss interpreted your comment and I’m sorry for calling you narrow minded. I’m glad to see that that is not what you meant.

    Also, the monkeys head is most definitely not separated from its body.

    The monkey is probably treated better then any other monkey used in research. If anything this is because the cost of implanting the electrodes and, more importantly, the mapping of its neurons and customizing the software for its particular brain costs a lot of money and time. These scientists want this monkey alive and happy for as long as physically possible.

  32. RD
    Feb 27th, 2012 at 12:12 pm

    Better to test on animals than on me. Science is definitely “Neat.”

  33. ted
    Feb 27th, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    Thanks, Sorin. That’s appreciated.

    I’m a little too obscure at times, I know.


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