A team of Japanese researchers from ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto and the Honda Research Institute in Saitama recently demonstrated the functionality of a thought-controlled robotic hand. The robotic hand reproduces the various movements of a human hand by interpreting the real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of a person's brain activity. The demonstration represents a giant step in the advancement of artificial limbs and robotics that can be controlled by a person's thoughts.

In the demonstration, several subjects lay inside an MRI scanner and then made 'rock', 'scissor' and 'paper' shapes with their right hand. As the users formed each shape, the MRI scanner monitored the flow of blood to the various regions of their brain and sent the data to a computer to be processed. Eventually, the computer learnt how to recognise the brain activity associated with each shape, and then commanded the robotic hand to reproduce the related shapes. In other words, when a fist was made to indicate a 'rock', the computer interpreted the brain activity and directed the robotic hand to make a fist.

Although the current technology is slow, bulky and expensive, ATR researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani is confident that it will help scientists to bolster their understanding of the brain and its complex functions. 'From a practical point of view, for the time being, the technology is too costly and slow,' admits Kamitani. He has no doubts, though, about the technology's potential. In fact, he predicts that thought-controlled robotic hands will one day be able to respond faster than human hands. 'The next step for me is to decode faster — even before the person moves their hand — by reading the brain activity related to intention.' However, Kamitani understands that fMRI technology will need to advance considerably in order for this to make the transition from concept to reality. 'We'll need several breakthroughs in related technologies, including those for brain scanning software, before this type of non-invasive system will be used in daily life.'

In a similar demonstration, researchers in Germany recently showed off a thought-controlled computer. According to the researchers, the computer has a wide range of applications, from enabling paralysed people to operate computers to helping amputees to control artificial limbs and appendages to allowing people to play computer games without the use of a keyboard, a joystick or a mouse. The 'Berlin Brain-Computer Interface' (BBCI), which has been dubbed the 'mental typewriter', was designed by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin and Charite, the medical school of Berlin Humboldt University in Germany, and was exhibited at an electronics fair in Hanover, Germany.

The BBCI allows users to type messages into a computer screen by mentally controlling the movement of a cursor. Wearing a cap filled with electrodes that measure their brain's electrical activity, known as an electroencephalogram (EEG) signal, users simply imagine moving their left or right arm in order to manoeuvre the cursor across the screen. 'It's a very strange sensation,' says Professor Gabriel Curio, a senior researcher at Charite. Curio explains that a user can operate the computer after going through 150 cursor movements in his or her mind. Like the thought-controlled robotic hand developed by Kamitani and his team, the thought-controlled computer learns how to interpret the user's brain activity, and then to associate it with various movements of the cursor.

However, unlike the Japanese developers, the German researchers feel that their technology is ready for commercial adaptation. They have even begun to develop a cap that does not need to be attached directly to a user's scalp in order to make the device less bulky and more comfortable to wear. Industry insiders foresee that the technology behind the thought-controlled computer will appear on the global market — in one form or another — in the near future. As for Japan's thought-controlled robotic hand, experts agree that the wait will be considerably longer, although they insist that it is not a matter of if but when. In both cases, therefore, it is clearly only a matter of time before the phrase 'mind over matter' becomes more than just an abstract expression.

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