In an almost four-minute video, Pager could be seen taking part in ‘MindPong’ with out utilizing a joystick.
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On Thursday, Elon Musk‘s neurotechnology firm Neuralink launched a video displaying a monkey taking part in video video games with its thoughts.
The practically four-minute video, which has since been seen over 1,000,000 occasions on YouTube, exhibits Pager, a 9-year-old macaque monkey with a Neuralink positioned on both sides of his mind, taking part in “MindPong” on a pc display screen in change for a “tasty banana smoothie delivered by a straw.”
Pager is initially seen utilizing a joystick to maneuver a cursor to targets on the display screen. As he is taking part in, researchers are additionally proven live-streaming the hundreds of neurons which can be being fired from the monkey’s mind — a step taken to mathematically mannequin the connection between the patterns of neural exercise and the totally different joystick actions Pager makes.
A couple of minutes later, scientists unplug the joystick, however Pager nonetheless controls the sport (albeit with out his information).
In keeping with Neuralink, scientists implanted the chips in Pager’s mind about six weeks in the past. Musk believes that the identical tech could possibly be used to “allow somebody with paralysis to make use of a smartphone with their thoughts quicker than somebody utilizing their thumbs.”
In 2020, the corporate carried out the same check of the know-how on a pig named Gertrude.