Theraputic Medicine: We're One Step Closer to Cyborgs

Researchers at the University of Washington have finally begin our precarious decline into an age of liquid T3 killer robots roving the earth against a threadbare human resistance. In an article due out in the November 2nd issue of Nature, researchers have shown that by implanting a small computer chip into the brains of monkeys they could establish new nerve connections in a part of the brain that controls movement.

"The Neurochip records the activity of motor cortex cells," Fetz explained, "It can convert this activity into a stimulus that can be sent back to the brain, spinal cord, or muscle, and thereby set up an artificial connection that operates continuously during normal behavior. This recurrent brain-computer interface creates an artificial motor pathway that the brain may learn to use to compensate for impaired pathways."

Jackson found that, when the brain-computer interface continuously connects neighboring sites in the motor cortex, it produces long-lasting changes. Namely, the movements evoked from the recording site changed to resemble those evoked from the stimulation site."

While the new technology has potential clinical uses for patients with strokes, paralysis and brain injuries, it could also be the first step in a world dominated by killer robots. Beware Skynet.

*via uwnews.org *