Planet of the Apes

Well, sort of. An injured monkey was outfitted with a neuro-transmiter, allowing his brain to communicate with his arm, despite the damaged spinal cord. The monkey was outfitted with electrodes in its brain and on its spinal cord; trained to move a cursor on a computer by flexing its wrist, the monkey was able to do this via the bridging electrodes.

Researchers surgically implanted electrodes in the motor cortex and premotor cortex of the monkey's brain, in areas that control arm and hand movements. They also implanted electrodes in the monkey's spinal cord.

The macaque was trained to move a cursor on a computer screen by flexing its wrist muscles. Later, the animal was trained to move the cursor with its mind alone, via signals recorded from the electrodes in its brain. In contrast to some previous studies that recorded single neurons, this study recorded the combined activity of groups of neurons.

LiveScience!

This is all very cool and has amazing ramifications for our future, but it also brings to mind all those damned Planet of the Apes movies. We're going to pay for this somehow, somewhere!