A 53-year-old woman paralyzed from the neck down by a
genetic neurodegenerative condition has learned to manipulate a robotic arm
with her thoughts, researchers report today in The Lancet. In the video above,
she uses the arm to remove plastic cones stacked on a base and restack them one
by one on another base. Surgeons had implanted two 4x4-millimeter grids of
hair-thin electrodes in her brain to capture signals from regions involved in
planning hand and arm movements. A computer translated those signals into
commands to move the robotic arm, which has nearly the same movement
capabilities as the real thing.