Slashdot is reporting on the applications of a 2002 brain interface technology that is finally being used with an actual prosthetic arm:
“A team at the university of Pittsburgh has finally advanced a 2002 technology enough for use in prosthetic limbs, the targeted application all along. Training computer models to the firing patterns of the neurons in the parts of the brain that control motion, they are able to project the intentions of a monkey to a robotic arm, which follows the will of the animal. The sad thing about the articles is that the beauty of the mathematics used to create and train the models is totally ignored.”
I’m way interested in this stuff, as back in 2001 I worked on a project called the “Direct Brain Interface Project” at UM where I built out a little computer game that would be used to train the underlying computer model that would detect brain waves for a given stimulus. I loved that project, it’s great to see that there’s some real progress being made in this area seven years later.
