Miguel Nicolelis: a monkey that controls a robot with its thoughts

February 22, 2013

Can we use our brains to directly control machines — without requiring a body as the middleman? Miguel Nicolelis talks through an astonishing experiment, in which a clever monkey in the U.S. learns to control a monkey avatar, and then a robot arm in Japan, purely with its thoughts. The research has big implications for quadraplegic people — and maybe for all of us. (Filmed at TEDMED 2012.)

— TED