Paralyzed man drinks first beer in 12 years by moving robotic arm with his brain

This is a good story and shows that one day an augmented brain may become more efficient. This will truly help those who are paralyzed.

There haven’t been any huge advances in brain computer interfaces (BCIs) since quadriplegic Jan Scheuermann helped herself to a cup of coffee a few years ago using a robotic arm. Today, Science magazine brings us a fantastic new first. Not only did quadriplegic Erik Sorto just drink himself his first beer in twelve years, he demonstrated the ability to control the precise activity of single neurons in his brain with specific thoughts.

With a plan to put a couple 96-spot electrode arrays into Erik’s PPC, and surgeon Charles Liu on hand to do the dirty work, the team set out to find the ideal spot to drop in the hardware. Although the cortex has about 3 ft. square of total area, only a fraction of that is available to cleanly land dueling 4mm x 4mm arrays on its surface. Due to the high bandwidth of these devices — approximately 200 electrodes recording the activity of possibly even more individual neurons putting out spikes that need to be sorted, isolated and time stamped with millisecond accuracy — compact wireless solutions are not yet an option. Until leading manufacturers of these kinds of devices, like Blackrock Microsystems, go wireless, the arrays will still need to be locally connectorized and tethered to the external world.

www.extremetech.com...

Here's the video:

Very cool! Hopefully me and my family stay healthy, but I imagine some day I won't be and my kids are gonna be like "there's an app for that dad". Things that were a death sentence 50 years ago (or more) are walk-in clinic visits nowadays. I dint see that trend changing.

a reply to: neoholographic

As awesome as this is I have to ask myself, What happens after say 5 or 6 beers?

a reply to: jaynkeel

I could be equally ridiculous and say that the first thing I did with my right hand would NOT be a beer.
That would of course be...ridiculous. I have a question, what happens to phantom limb syndrome once the limb has been replaced, are there studies on that?

a reply to: Jonjonj

Really I don't try to be insensitive or such. It is just weird ? like that haunt me for some reason. But I am also the same idiot that had to take a magnet to my back after back surgery to see if it stuck. And I hear ya on the first thing to try with the now useful limb, I so would of pulled up my socks as well!!!...

12 years without a beer?
That is the most tragic story I've heard today.
Go science.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Probably a load of doctors around watching so probably thats the next thing on his list shall we say once the fuss has died and he gets some "personal" time

could be good if in theory he could queue up tasks for his arm so he could do something else while it cracks open a beer and gets something to eat without breaking his concentration on something else.

But as someone said 12 years without a beer, someone needs to update the constitution to ban such abuses

WOW!...Twelve whole years without a beer, poor bloke must've been gagging for a pint, and nobody thought to put one in his drinking tube, think i would have will'ed a beer to levitate to my mouth long before, ha' i bet he'd forgot how s##t tastes

Wow! This will be the early stages of a real bionic man. Human/Machine Hybrids will no doubt be big in the future.

Say when he gets pissed and thinks about punching the guy next to him???a reply to: jaynkeel