| Miguel Angelo Laporta Nicolelis | |
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| Born | São Paulo, Brazil |
| Citizenship | Brazilian |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Fields | Neuroscience |
| Institutions | International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal |
| Alma mater | University of Sao Paulo |
Miguel Angelo Laporta Nicolelis, MD, PhD, is a Brazilian physician and scientist, best known for his pioneering work in "reading monkey thought". He and his colleagues implanted electrode arrays into a monkey's brain that were able to detect the monkey's motor intent and thus able to control reaching and grasping movements performed by a robotic arm. This was possible by decoding signals of hundreds of neurons recorded in volitional areas of the cerebral cortex while the monkey played with a hand-held joystick to move a shape in a video game. These signals were sent to the robot arm, which then mimicked the monkey's movements and thus controlled the game. After a while the monkey realised that thinking about moving the shape was enough and it no longer needed to move the joystick. So it let go of the joystick and controlled the game purely through thought. A system in which brain signals directly control an artificial actuator is commonly referred to as brain-machine interface or brain-computer interface.
On January 15, 2008, Dr. Nicolelis's lab saw a monkey implanted with a new BCI successfully control a robot walking on a treadmill in Kyoto, Japan. The monkey could see the robot, named CB, on a screen in front of him, and was rewarded for walking in sync with the robot (which was under the control of the monkey). After an hour the monkey's treadmill was turned off, but he was able to continue to direct the robot to walk normally for another few minutes, indicating that a part of the brain not sufficient to induce a motor response in the monkey had become dedicated to controlling the robot, as if it were an extension of itself.[1][2]
Nicolelis is a co-founder and scientific director of the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal, a brain research facility in Brasil[citation needed]
On August 3, 2010, Nicolelis was award an NIH Director's Pioneer Award to continue his research on brain-machine interface technology. On January 5, 2011, Dr. Nicolelis was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI as an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Nicolelis is a fanatic fan of Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras a Brazilian soccer club; a soccer ball with Palmeiras crest can be seen at his website. He also likes Música Popular Brasileira.
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Contents
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Selected Publications on Brain-Machine Interface
- Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives (ASIN B005Q5R5RU) publisher: Times Books (March 15, 2011)
- Lebedev, M.A., Carmena, J.M., O’Doherty, J.E., Zacksenhouse, M., Henriquez, C.S., Principe, J.C., Nicolelis, M.A.L. (2005) Cortical ensemble adaptation to represent actuators controlled by a brain machine interface. J. Neurosci. 25: 4681-4693.
- Santucci, D.M., Kralik, J.D., Lebedev, M.A., Nicolelis, M.A.L. (2005) Frontal and parietal cortical ensembles predict single-trial muscle activity during reaching movements. Eur. J. Neurosci., 22: 1529-1540.
- Carmena, J.M., Lebedev, M.A., Crist, R.E., O’Doherty, J.E., Santucci, D.M., Dimitrov, D.F., Patil, P.G., Henriquez, C.S., Nicolelis, M.A.L. (2003) Learning to control a brain-machine interface for reaching and grasping by primates. PLoS Biology, 1: 193-208.
- Nicolelis MA (2003) Brain-machine interfaces to restore motor function and probe neural circuits. Nat Rev Neurosci. 4: 417-422.
- Wessberg J, Stambaugh CR, Kralik JD, Beck PD, Laubach M, Chapin JK, Kim J, Biggs SJ, Srinivasan MA, Nicolelis MA. (2000) Real-time prediction of hand trajectory by ensembles of cortical neurons in primates. Nature 16: 361-365.
References
- ^ "Monkey Think, Robot Do". Scientific American. January 15, 2008. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=monkey-think-robot-do.
- ^ "Monkey’s Thoughts Propel Robot, a Step That May Help Humans". The New York Times. January 15, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15robo.html?pagewanted=all.
Additional references
- ^ "The Scientific American 50". Scientific American. December 2004. pp. 46. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D5CA6-D59B-118F-91DD83414B7F0000&pageNumber=2&catID=9.
External links
- Nicolelis Lab
- CV and awards
- New Scientist 2003
- New Scientist 2004
- International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal (IINN)
- Oct 16, 2003 interview with Charlie Rose
- Mindful Motion: Miguel Nicolelis and Mind-Powered Robots; and Creating Science Cities in Brazil and Beyond Scientific American podcast January 16, 2008
- Nov 2, 2011 Computing with Neural Ensembles (video)
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