Telekinesis made simple

Erik Sorto had been paralyzed for 10 years when he volunteered for a bold neural engineering experiment: He would receive a brain implant and try to use the signals it recorded to control a robotic arm. Erik had no qualms about signing up for brain surgery, but his mother wasn't happy about it. "She was just being a mom," Sorto says with a smile. "She was like, 'Your brain is the only part of your body that works just fine. Why would you mess with that?'" Instead of reducing his capacities, the surgery gave Sorto superhuman abilities. In the experiments, Sorto simply imagines reaching out to grab an object and the robotic arm carries out his commands. While a handful of paralyzed people have previously used brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to control robotic limbs, those subjects' implants recorded signals from the primary motor cortex, which is linked directly to the spinal cord and muscles. Sorto's implant was the first to record instead from the posterior parietal cortex, a brain region involved in planning movements.