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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

#31

Post by adrianN »

rudolf0 wrote: post #30
adrianN wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even fruit flies share ~60%, and I guess most people agree that insects are fair game.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#32

Post by adrianN »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #23
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…

I think that "if we don't do it, the reds will get there first" is not a good argument in an ethical debate. Maybe the argument that right now people are suffering because they can't walk or have some other affliction whose cure requires animal testing carries more weight.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#33

Post by snowwrestler »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #27
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…

Trying things and seeing what happens is the essence of science; the only way we have to try to figure things out. Scientists have to get replication of an effect before they can design further experiments to dig into its details.

As to whether it's unethical--it sickens me too. It's horrifying but what if it gives us the key to solving spinal paralysis? It's a classic moral dilemma. I highly recommend this short story, which explores this sort of dilemma:

http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.p...

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#35

Post by d0lph »

Waterluvian wrote: post #8
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…

Because it's creepy and weird so we will consider a quick slaughter more ethical than experimentation because bacon and steak is so delicious. That's my guess.

I think the suffering of the animal is the primary issue.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#36

Post by snowwrestler »

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...

This might still be useful medically.

Let's guess that each person's unique representation for walking does not change, or changes slowly. That seems reasonable since it is at least partially based on the physical arrangement of neurons.

We could bank it on a regular basis--recording via a device we wear around for a month every 5 years, for example. Then if we are paralyzed, the most recent recording is used to map an implant.

Personally, I will not surprised if we find that each person's nervous system is so different from the next that nothing significant is generalizable. Rather than each person running an "OS on standard hardware" we might find that a more accurate analogy is that each person has constructed their own custom logic circuit and then wrote custom software on top of that.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#37

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

snowwrestler wrote: post #33
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Trying things and seeing what happens is the essence of science; the only way we have to try to figure things out. Scientists have to get replication of an effect before they can design further experiments to dig into its details. As to whether it's unethical--it sickens me too. It's horrifying but what if it gives us the key to solving spinal paralysis? It's a classic moral dilemma. I highly recommend this short sto…

Science starts with observation, not experimentation.

Honestly, if this was software, I'd consider this sort of approach as nothing short of pathetic. When I first reverse engineered firmware flashing software for mobile phones, experimentation was the absolute last thing I did - and all that experimentation could do was damage my phone, not another living creature.

Instead I recorded observations of software operating under normal use (USB traces) and identified patterns in this. Only once I'd spent a long time determining patterns and built a model did I decide it was safe to perform some experimentation.

To be fair, biological systems are much more complicated than computer systems written by other humans. However, observation should always come first! This study seems crude to me.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#38

Post by intrasight »

I struggled with this while in graduate school studying neuroscience. Fortunately, I was studying crustaceans so there were not too many ethical issues. But there was rodent and monkey research happening in the school. I choose to return to my first profession - software. I assume that I'll be long dead before there are ethical issues with experimenting on AI.

Animal research is something that we as a society are going to struggle with for many years into the future. I would like to be able to argue that it is for the greater good of the planet, but I don't think that I could put up a good argument that we are being proper stewards of the planet.

Re: Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk

#39

Post by biofox »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #27
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…

Scientists are not sadists, and welfare is taken extremely seriously. What people don't see are the efforts to enrich living environments, provide sedation and analgesia, or the reams of protocols on monitoring and rapidly terminating experiments if the animal is distressed. None of this exists in livestock farming.

Also, for me intelligence is besides the point. If someone is suffering, I don't factor their IQ into whether or not I should help them. What I am saying is that if we are happy to accept animals suffering for our benefit, then we should not be selective about it.

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