Scientists have used technology similar to the one fictionalised in the film ‘Avatar’ to allow a monkey to control movements of a second unconscious primate, an advance that may help find a cure for paralysis.
Brain scans read the master monkey’s mind and were used to electrically stimulate the ‘avatar’ monkey’s spinal cord, resulting in controlled movement, researchers said.
They hope the technology can be refined to allow paralysed people to regain control of their own body.
The experiment by scientists at Harvard Medical School involved two rhesus monkeys, one was designated the master and the other was sedated to play the ‘avatar’.
The master had a brain chip implanted that could monitor the activity of up to 100 neurons. During training, the physical actions of the monkey were matched up with the patterns of electrical activity in the neurons, ‘BBC News’ reported.
The avatar had 36 electrodes implanted in the spinal cord and tests were performed to see how stimulating different combinations of electrodes affected movement.
The two monkeys were then hooked up so that the brain scans in one controlled movements in real time in the other.
The sedated avatar held a joystick, while the master had to think about moving a cursor up or down. In 98 per cent of tests, the master could correctly control the avatar’s arm.
“The goal is to take people with brain stem or spinal cord paralysis and bypass the injury,” said one of the researchers, Dr Ziv Williams.
He said that giving paralysed people even a small amount of movement could dramatically alter their quality of life.
The idea of one brain controlling an avatar body has been shown in Hollywood movie ‘Avatar’.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.