http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7423184.stm
Coool, and yet slightly unnerving…
You should know that your post about Robot Monkeys, including the words “cool” and “unnerving” generated a Google banner ad about Ann Coulter.
Not cool, but very unnerving.
Edit: Does that mean Ann Coulter is a Robot Monkey? Hmmm…
It means they should free the monkeys and test that equipment on her instead.
Now all they need is some Chemical-X
We’re on the cusp of an incredible time. Everyone’s been asking where their
flying cars are, but here is the sci-fi that’s long deserved to be reality. It’s
been possible for a long time to hook prosthetic limbs up to residual nerves
after amputation, but the research just doesn’t seem to move along fast
enough for my tastes. Finally, we’re making strides in this area, as well as
starting to grow organs from a pateint’s adult stem cells, so that a transplant
will not be rejected (finally!!!). Interestingly, it’s the military complex that has
been pushing this research forward … there’s balance in all things.
I just finished reading the article and here’s the part I find most interesting:
[Professor Paul M Matthew said,] “However, this important paper
confirms that the brain controls movement just by planning where to go,
rather than by directing individual muscles how to make the limb get there.”
This seems to back up our intuition about “muscle memory”. I wonder if
the brain starts to group this “planning” into larger chunks. This would have
interesting implications for playing music. Instead of “now lift R3, now lift R2,
now lift R1”, maybe your brain eventually learns to group it as, “play the
triplet E-F-G”
Also,
“The study shows that fewer than 100 tiny electrical signals generated in the specialised area known as the ‘motor cortex’ can command even complex arm and hand movements.”
This seems to suggest a certain amount of “distributed computing” in the body.
If the brain had to micromanage, it would need many, many connections so
that it could control each muscle individually. But instead, it looks like it can
say, “hey, guys, straighten the right arm out to the side,” and the muscle groups
which need to do something work it out amongst themselves. This is how most
modern robot research has been going as well.
This is pretty fascinating for such a short article!
I think it may be more obscure than that. I’m not even sure that right brain control in the form of “play the triplet E-F-G” is in control, here. I’m thinking that what is being stored is a mass of commands that we learn the feel of, so that when the right brain says play the triplet, the autonomic side of the brain responds with the correct movements associated with the remembered sensation of playing the triplet.
djm
What the article DOESN’T tell you is that the monkeys used the robot arm to fling feces at the researchers… 
Paul knows monkeys!