And here's another story about a dude controlling a robotic hand with his mind and using it to do something very important. And that is to
DRINK BEER.
You need to see Erik G. Sorto's smile when he drinks this beer. You've never seen a smile like it before. It's the smile of a man who hasn't brought a bottle to his lips with his own hands in 12 years — because that's when he became paralyzed from a gunshot wound.
Now, thanks to neuroscientist Richard Andersen from the California Institute of Technology, Sorto can use his brain to operate a robotic arm. He can pick up a beer, bring it to his mouth and take a sip from a straw. It's an action most people take for granted every weekend. But it means much more to the 32-year-old.
Andersen's team ventured into the unusual science of neuroprosthetics so Sorto could drink that beer.
In the past, electrodes have been planted in the motor cortex, which reads each individual movement: lift arm, reach arm, lower arm, close hand, raise arm, retract arm, tip hand and so on. According to Science, Andersen and his team discovered they could plant the same electrodes in the posterior parietal cortex, the part of the brain that controls intent instead of motor function. The brain can command, simply, "Drink that beer" — instead of the rigorous step-by-step process listed above.
Here's the video of the guy having a beer;