[ti:Monkeys Use Their Minds to Move Virtual Arms]
[ar:June Simms]
[al:Technology Report]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[01:07.48]From VOA Learning English,
[00:01.52]this is the Technology Report.
[00:04.97]Monkeys have learned to move the arms
[00:08.63]of a monkey on a computer screen
[00:10.95]just by thinking about moving them.
[00:14.21]The work moves forward efforts
[00:17.11]to develop brain control devices 
[00:20.14]for people who are paralyzed
[00:22.68]or unable to move certain parts of their body.
[00:27.54]Researchers have developed software
[00:30.64]that runs between the monkey's brains and a machine.
[00:34.99]They hope it could someday be used to let someone
[00:38.90]with the spinal cord injury control an artificial arm
[00:43.73]or leg just by thinking about it.
[00:46.58]The software was developed by researchers
[00:50.23]at the Center for Neuroengineering
[00:53.14]at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
[00:57.83]Early vesions of the software could control
[01:01.38]only one artificial limb.
[01:04.34]But the new software let rhesus monkeys
[01:07.85]move two arms at the same time,
[01:10.65]as they watch a likeness of themselves on a computer screen.
[01:15.56]Miguel Nicolelis is a Neurobiology professor at Duke.
[01:21.66]He says the monkeys first learned to control the limbs
[01:26.77]on the computer screens using joysticks,
[01:30.17]then they were trained not to move.
[01:33.48]"They are trained just to imagine the movements.
[01:35.92]And we get the signals from both parts of their brains
[01:39.88]- both hemispheres - to be routed to a computer
[01:43.97]that's running a computer algorithm
[01:46.28]that translates their voluntary will
[01:49.82]to move into movements of a virtual body," Nicolelis said.
[01:52.63]Professor Nicolelis says scientists
[01:55.92]are now developing a clothing that can be controlled by the brain.
[02:00.51]It would permit the person wearing the clothing
[02:04.17]to control artificial limbs.
[02:07.38]The device changes electrical signals from the brain  into commands,
[02:13.13]and then into digital signals 
[02:16.14]that machine in the clothing can understand.
[02:20.34]Professor Nicolelis says the vest will be showed
[02:24.70]at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil later this year.
[02:30.50]"And we hope to make a demonstration
[02:32.45]during the opening ceremony by having a young paraplegic,
[02:36.44]a Brazilian adult, to walk into the field using this vest,
[02:44.35]controlled by brain activity 
[02:46.29]and being in charge of the opening kick-off of the World Cup," he said.
[02:50.94]You can find an article on the research
[02:54.19]in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
[02:57.61]In a separate but related story,
[03:01.21]a Danish man has become the first amputee
[03:04.82]to experience feeling in his artificial hand.
[03:09.22]Dennis Aabo lost his hand to fireworks nine years ago.
[03:14.62]Since then, he has used a prosthetic hand.
[03:18.48]Last year, researchers in Italy and Switzerland
[03:22.74]attached sensors to the fingers of the artificial hand.
[03:27.59]They then wired the sensors to the nerves in Aabo's upper arm.
[03:33.11]Researchers say the experiments proved promising,
[03:37.51]but they say many years of work remains.
[03:41.21]An article on that research also appears
[03:45.31]in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
[03:49.26]And that is the Technology Report from VOA Learning English.
[03:55.12]I'm June Simms.
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