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Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

nature.com

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Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#21

Post by gpderetta »

quantisan wrote: post #2

"The problem I see with this is that they implant monkey before paralysis and can use machine learning to build a model of the monkey's unique representation for walking. Then they paralyze and show the monkey's can adapt to only using their interface in 5 days. There's no way the mapping from neural activity to stimulation is generalizable..." [1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/5c2ljz/brain_impla...

That's why you should backup early and often your neuronal imprint. Cyberpunk is one step closer.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#22

Post by adrianN »

popol12 wrote: post #19
biofox wrote: post #7

"For more than a decade, neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine has been flying every few months from his lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne to another lab in Beijing, China, where he conducts research on monkeys with the aim of treating spinal-cord injuries. The commute is exhausting — on occasion he has even flown to Beijing, done experiments, and returned the same night. But it is worth it, say…

We are much closer geneticaly to monkeys than to cows, I would'nt do experiments on something that has 99% genes in common with me.

Chimpanzees are at ~98%, mice are at about 97% similarity [1]. Where do you draw the line? Genetic similarity is imho a poor measure. The capability of suffering is more difficult to assess, but more useful. I'm reasonably sure that the animals we eat can suffer sufficiently to make the way we raise and kill them problematic.

[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2352-just-2-5-of-dna-...

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#23

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

TeeWEE wrote: post #4

I cant help to feel sad for the monkey. I'm not sure this is the way research should be done. Why not try this on a smaller scale animal first before doing it on a monkey? Also you don"t need to cut the spinal cord todo data analysis.

Because of this sentiment, western nations are going to be leaps and bounds behind China and other nations when it comes to technologies /treatments derived from CRISPR.

When George Church and ithers called for a moratorium on CRISPR based research, Chinese scientists said suit yourself and cintinued doing research on it. When the day comes that wr can cinduct research like this with simulations and can spare beasts unnecessary pain, im all for it.

I find it more peculiar that people will treat a dog or other subhuman creature better then they will homeless person.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#24

Post by bognition »

This is absolutely fantastic and its a great step in the right direction but we are still years if not decades away from being able to circumvent spinal lesions in humans.

One of the major problems with human spinal lesions is the loss of control of the trunk of the body (ie the core). Humans have dozens of muscle groups that control balance and posture through minute movements. Without fine grain control over these muscles balance is going to be extremely difficult.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#25

Post by saganus »

popol12 wrote: post #19
biofox wrote: post #7

"For more than a decade, neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine has been flying every few months from his lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne to another lab in Beijing, China, where he conducts research on monkeys with the aim of treating spinal-cord injuries. The commute is exhausting — on occasion he has even flown to Beijing, done experiments, and returned the same night. But it is worth it, say…

We are much closer geneticaly to monkeys than to cows, I would'nt do experiments on something that has 99% genes in common with me.

The problem then boils down to what's an acceptable percentage, no?

I mean, 99% is off limits, but what about 98%? 95%? where's the cut off?

I don't think gene commonality is a useful metric for this. Not really sure what would it be though, and I agree that it seems creepy to do experiments on an animal that looks a lot more like you than a worm or a rat.

But I also think it's appalling the way we treat our food sources and would love for this to improve, regardless of whether they look like me or not, and regardless of the amount of genes we have in common. Just out of basic respect for life (I also don't like cutting trees and plants just because).

Unfortunately I still like meat and bacon and other cow products, and while I try to eat less red meat, it's very hard to do.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#27

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

biofox wrote: post #7

"For more than a decade, neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine has been flying every few months from his lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne to another lab in Beijing, China, where he conducts research on monkeys with the aim of treating spinal-cord injuries. The commute is exhausting — on occasion he has even flown to Beijing, done experiments, and returned the same night. But it is worth it, say…

I would assume it's because monkeys are more intelligent than the animals we tend to eat; cows, chickens, sheep & pigs.

Also, intentionally paralysing a creature, leaving it to live in that condition, and then performing experimental surgery/procedures on it is significantly different than slaughtering it.

Whilst I appreciate the scientists mean well, and I do understand how this could benefit humanity; this sort of research still seems unethical to me, and at the very least makes me feel sick.

As a software developer and reverse engineer, this feels like hacking anyway. It's not particularly scientific just to "capture and replay" data without much understanding of how it works.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#28

Post by fdej »

popol12 wrote: post #19
biofox wrote: post #7

"For more than a decade, neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine has been flying every few months from his lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne to another lab in Beijing, China, where he conducts research on monkeys with the aim of treating spinal-cord injuries. The commute is exhausting — on occasion he has even flown to Beijing, done experiments, and returned the same night. But it is worth it, say…

We are much closer geneticaly to monkeys than to cows, I would'nt do experiments on something that has 99% genes in common with me.

The figure I've seen cited for rhesus monkeys 93%, with cows around 80%. But why are you so concerned about genetic similarity? Isn't the more important question how sentient and capable of suffering they are? If we discovered alien beings with human-like intelligence and sentience that didn't share our DNA, would you prefer experimenting on those?

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#29

Post by rudolf0 »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #12
biofox wrote: post #7

"For more than a decade, neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine has been flying every few months from his lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne to another lab in Beijing, China, where he conducts research on monkeys with the aim of treating spinal-cord injuries. The commute is exhausting — on occasion he has even flown to Beijing, done experiments, and returned the same night. But it is worth it, say…

I agree. Logically, it should be more acceptable to have animals as test subjects that can benefit all mankind vs being a tasty treat for an individual. But we all have are cognitive dissonances, without exception. Thats just a quirk of being human

The real cognitive dissonance is testing on them or slaughtering them for food vs. pampering them and trying to save endangered species, etc. The testing is often worse since it may involve torture and/or mutilation.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#30

Post by rudolf0 »

adrianN wrote: post #22
popol12 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are much closer geneticaly to monkeys than to cows, I would'nt do experiments on something that has 99% genes in common with me.

Chimpanzees are at ~98%, mice are at about 97% similarity [1]. Where do you draw the line? Genetic similarity is imho a poor measure. The capability of suffering is more difficult to assess, but more useful. I'm reasonably sure that the animals we eat can suffer sufficiently to make the way we raise and kill them problematic. [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2352-just-2-5-of-dna-...

Genetic similarity is definitely a poor measure, but keep in mind many (including myself) consider testing on mice highly unethical as well.
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