Wired is carrying another article that seems to stem directly out of a sci-fi novel. Cyberkinetics, a firm specialising in the field of brain-computer interfaces, has received the FDA go-ahead to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients, allowing them to think commands to a computer.
Cyberkinetics founder Dr. John Donoghue, a Brown University neuroscientist, attracted attention with research on monkeys that was published in 2002 in the journal Nature.
Three rhesus monkeys were given implants, which were first used to record signals from their motor cortex -- an area of the brain that controls movement -- as they manipulated a joystick with their hands. Those signals were then used to develop a program that enabled one of the monkeys to continue moving a computer cursor with its brain.
I guess there will be no more quarelling for the remote control in a decade's time ;) We have already reported on a similar article a few weeks back..
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