Jack William Bell's Journal: Another step towards that direct neural interface

Duke University scientists have succeeded in an experiment where monkeys controlled a robot 'third arm' with their own brains. "The core of the new work is the neuronal model created by the researchers. This translates the brain signals from the monkey into movements of the robot arm. It was developed by monitoring normal brain and muscle activity as the monkey moved its own arms."

This is very interesting research, partly because it showed that brains are flexible enough to control an extra limb: "Once the neuronal model had developed an accurate level of prediction the researchers switched the control of the cursor from the joystick to the robotic arm, which in turn was controlled by the monkey's brain signals. At first the monkeys continued moving their own arms whilst carrying out the task, but in time they learned this was no longer necessary and stopped doing so."

This is similar to how I used to move my body when playing UT (despite the fact only my hands were controlling the action), but eventually learned to use only a twitch of my fingers instead of the twitch combined with the movement of my head when I wanted to make a quick look to the left. So, extrapolating from this, I am thinking it is possible to add extra 'senses' as well as 'limbs' to humans using similar neural connections. (Plus quite a bit of training before you can use them.)

What this means is that early computer/human neural connections will be more like 'typing in your head' than like 'just thinking it'. But, just like typing is for me now, eventually it will be as automatic as thinking, although probably a bit slower.