Monkey magic

May 29 2008

Monkeys have been trained to operate a human-like robot arm with their thoughts.

Two animals had their own arms restrained while they fed themselves with the arm, using it to deliver marshmallows and chunks of fruit.

The experiment, by a team at the Pittsburgh School of Medicine in America, is seen as a major step forward towards the goal of creating functional artificial limbs that interact with the brain. Other control systems for prosthetic devices have relied on signals generated by tiny muscle movements.