HUMAN THOUGHTS NOW CONTROL ROBOTS AND ITS FOR REAL

Video from BrainGate team shows Cathy Hutchinson using a robot arm to take a sip of coffee. Courtesy Brown University / Massachusetts General Hospital

Two patients in the United States who are paralysed from the neck down have been able to control a robotic arm using their thoughts.

It allowed one to drink unaided for the first time in nearly 15 years.

The technique, described in the journal Nature, links a sensor implanted in the brain to a computer, which translates electrical signals into commands.

In years to come, scientists want to reconnect the brain to paralysed limbs to enable them to function again.

The project was a partnership by Brown University and the Department of Veteran Affairs, Rhode Island, and the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

In 2006 in a previous Nature paper, the team showed that the same neural interface system could be used by a paralysed patient to control a cursor on a computer screen.