Texture Messaging: Breakthrough May Help Spinal Cord Patients Experience Tactile Sensations
In a first-ever experiment, primates move and feel objects on a computer screen using only their thoughtsWhen real brains operate in the real world, it's a two-way street. Electrical activity in the brain's motor cortex speeds down the spinal column to the part of the body to be moved while tactile sensations from the skin simultaneously zip through the spinal cord and into the brain's somatosensory cortex. Most of us would have trouble doing the former without the latter: Absent the feel of a floor beneath your feet it's awfully difficult to walk properly, and lacking the tactile sensation of a coffee mug, your brain cannot sense how tightly your fingers should grasp it. There have been tremendous advances made in brain–machine interfaces in which electrodes implanted, first in monkey brains and, now, in those of quadriplegics and patients with " locked-in syndrome ," translate motor cortex electrical...