最新科学实验证实：猴子可以用大脑控制虚拟的手臂，并且感受到虚拟手臂传回来的“触觉”。这项研究的意义在于，它或许可以让瘫痪患者从新获得"肢体"。
研究团队已经研发出一种“脑插管”，可以让猴子用大脑控制虚拟手臂，并感受虚拟手臂传回的“触觉”。今后义肢或机械肢体应该可以让使用者感受到机械臂触碰到的东西，而不是仅仅凭视觉来控制。
研究者将电极插入2只猴子的大脑运动皮质和体感觉皮质。运动皮质是参与进行自发动作的大脑区域。体感觉皮质则处理身体对触觉敏感的那些细胞传来的信息。
猴子被训练仅使用大脑来移动电脑屏幕上显示的虚拟手臂，植入运动皮质的电极会记录猴子的运动企图，当屏幕上的虚拟手臂摸到物体时，电信号会回馈给体感觉皮质，提供“触觉”信息。
研究者表示，虽然不清楚猴子到底感觉到了什么，但是这确实是一种人工创造出的感觉，把虚拟的手指和大脑直接联系了起来。
论文作者表示，一个主要的挑战在于，不能让输入的感觉信息和输出的运动企图互相干扰。研究者于是将记录运动企图和输入感觉信号分成了2个“进程”，每个进程运行100毫秒后切换到另一个“进程”。这等于给运动区和感觉区的信息交互加了限制，不过即使这样，猴子还是很好地完成了任务。
先前的类似“脑机接口”中，都是依靠视觉来完成任务的，没有“触觉”。仅靠视觉可能无法很好地抓握东西。
研究者希望这种技术能在接下来的3年中开始临床应用，并在2014年世界杯足球赛上让瘫痪的巴西少年控制机械肢体来开球。
相关英文论文摘要：
Active tactile exploration using a brain–machine–brain interface
Brain–machine interfaces use neuronal activity recorded from the brain to establish direct communication with external actuators, such as prosthetic arms. It is hoped that brain–machine interfaces can be used to restore the normal sensorimotor functions of the limbs, but so far they have lacked tactile sensation. Here we report the operation of a brain–machine–brain interface (BMBI) that both controls the exploratory reaching movements of an actuator and allows signalling of artificial tactile feedback through intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) of the primary somatosensory cortex. Monkeys performed an active exploration task in which an actuator (a computer cursor or a virtual-reality arm) was moved using a BMBI that derived motor commands from neuronal ensemble activity recorded in the primary motor cortex. ICMS feedback occurred whenever the actuator touched virtual objects. Temporal patterns of ICMS encoded the artificial tactile properties of each object. Neuronal recordings and ICMS epochs were temporally multiplexed to avoid interference. Two monkeys operated this BMBI to search for and distinguish one of three visually identical objects, using the virtual-reality arm to identify the unique artificial texture associated with each. These results suggest that clinical motor neuroprostheses might benefit from the addition of ICMS feedback to generate artificial somatic perceptions associated with mechanical, robotic or even virtual prostheses.
英文论文原文链接：Active tactile exploration using a brain–machine–brain interface
