American scientists have created a thought-powered wheelchair.
Duke University staff conducted laboratory studies using monkeys. According to the scientists, they formed a separate system that interacts with the brain and the computer, which allows patients with complete paralysis to influence the wheelchair using the power of thought.
According to Miguel Nicolelis, a researcher at Duke University, to develop a unique tool, it was necessary to insert a chip into the visual and motor cortex of two monkeys, which contains three hundred electrodes.
Observing the activity of the animals, the doctors recorded the individual signals necessary to create a computer program that interprets the impulses of the monkeys in the movements of the wheelchair.
As it turned out, after a month the monkeys could already control the stroller - the animal brain began to consider it as its new limb, and in this regard, it began to generate signals that encode the distance between the monkey and the target to which it was moving.
According to experts, this information will be used to improve the operation of the chair, which will learn to predict where the disabled person wants to go.
It is expected that in the near future, scientists will implement this experience, but with the participation of people.