Monkey control robotic arm with brain implants

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.

Source: www.newscientist.com...

I welcome our new cybernetic apes overlord!

Seriously, China is making some serious medical research recently (see my other thread : www.abovetopsecret.com...). I was seriously stunned by this news, and feel somewhat for and against that kind of research. I can see how this can lead to help paraplegics better control prosthetic arms, but I am also somewhat uneasy of where will this end up : military applications.

I wonder if a biologist can help me understand if this can this lead to the reverse usage : remote control of (super)soldiers, remote monitoring or endoctrination of criminals/political dissidents (we are talking about China after all).

All your comments are welcome!

Poor monkey

reply to post by RealSpoke


Poor monkey indeed

A robot arm for a monkey...

How bout they do something for the monkey which it gives a damn about... Like giving them back nature and stop poking at them.


Speaking from a disabled persons point of view, I am willing to spend the rest of my life wheelchair bound happily if it in anyway stops this kind of "research".

Originally posted by Qumulys
Speaking from a disabled persons point of view, I am willing to spend the rest of my life wheelchair bound happily if it in anyway stops this kind of "research".

Words of wisdom. Thank you for your contribution.

reply to post by Qumulys


Why don't they just focus on stem cell therapy for the disabled....what a shame...I'm sure the monkey experiments have benefited us in the past but with all our technology why do we still need them? There are alternatives....but I am aware that monkeys cannot sue or complain...

reply to post by chrismarco


If they have willing (human) participants then by all means I wish they would continue with stem cell research full tilt (although that is unlikely to help me personally due to an ingrowing spinal tumor) but it has massive potential and has shown promising results. Why on earth they need to do this on animals is beyond me.

In the words of the mighty Python, to the 'scientists' I fart in your general direction!

So monkeys are controlling robotics now? Maybe we should let them handle politics too. It might make everything all better in the world.