文章注释
HELPING yourself to a cup of coffee may seem like a small, everyday thing. But not if you are quadriplegic. Unlike paraplegics, for whom the robotic legs described in the previous article are being developed, quadriplegics have lost the use of all four limbs. Yet thanks to a project organised by John Donoghue ofBrownUniversity, inRhode Island, and his colleagues, they too have hope. One of the participants in his experiments, a 58-year-old woman who is unable to use any of her limbs, can now pick up a bottle containing coffee and bring it close enough to her mouth to drink from it using a straw. She does so using a thought-controlled robotic arm fixed to a nearby stand. It is the first time she has managed something like that since she
suffered a stroke, nearly 15 years ago.
喝一杯咖啡看似是一件日常小事，但前提是你并非四肢瘫患。这与下身麻痹者不同，四肢瘫痪者的四肢均不能正常工作，之前文章中曾有所描述，能够帮助他们的机械腿正在研发当中。多亏了朗大学的约翰多诺霍教授在罗德岛和他的同事正在进行的项目，患者看到了希望。一名实验的参与者——一名四肢瘫痪的58岁的女性，现在已经可以拿动一杯咖啡并且送到嘴边上用吸管饮用。这一成果的实现得益于一个固定在其附近的由思维控制的机械手臂。这是她在15年前中风瘫痪后第一次能成功应付一些事情。
Arms are more complicated pieces of machinery than legs, so controlling them via electrodes attached to the skin of someone’s scalp is not yet possible. Instead, brain activity has to be recorded directly. And that is what Dr Donoghue is doing. Both his female participant and a second individual, a man of 66 also paralysed by a stroke, have worked with him before, as a result of which they have had small, multichannel electrodes implanted in the parts of the motor cortexes of their brains associated with hand movements. The woman’s implant was put there in 2005; the man’s five months before the latest trial, described in a paper just published in Nature.
手臂是比腿更加复杂的机械部件，所以通过附着于人头皮上的皮肤电极来实现控制的技术尚未实现。相反，大脑活动的记录却直截了当，这就是诺霍教授所做的研究。他的女性参与者和另一个参与者——之前就曾与他一起共事过的66岁的中风瘫患者，他们在制手臂运动的大脑运动皮质中都有一个小的，多通道电极。根据最近《自然》杂志发表的一篇文章，女性参与者的电极在2005年植入，男性参与者的电极在最近实验前的5个月植入。
Dr Donoghue and his team decoded signals from their participants’ brains as they were asked to imagine controlling a robotic arm making preset movements. The volunteers were then encouraged to operate one of two robot arms by thinking about the movements they wanted to happen. When the software controlling the arms detected the relevant signals, the arms moved appropriately.
参与者被要求设想出一种能够控制机械手臂来做预设运动的场景，从而诺霍教授和他的团队能从实验参与者的大脑里解码出信号。志愿者则被鼓励通过想象他们希望发生的动作来操作一两种机器人手臂。当软件控制机械手臂搜索到相关信号时，手臂就能做出适当的移动回应。
The arm that the woman used to help herself to a drink is a lightweight device developed by DLR,Germany’s Aerospace Centre, as part of its robotics programme. The other, known as a DEKA arm, is being developed inAmericaspecifically as a prosthetic for those who have lost an arm. Normally, it is operated by the wearer moving his chest or moving his toes over buttons in a shoe. The participants used it to reach and grasp a ball made of foam rubber.
那位女性参与者用来帮助自己喝水的轻便装置由德国航空航天中心研发制成，是作为其机器人计划的一部分。另一种，即德克手臂，是美国公司特意为那些丧失手臂的人制造的假肢。通常的，它由佩戴者移动胸部或是鞋里面脚趾头上的按钮进行操作。参与者用它触碰泡沫橡胶球。
Dr Donoghue and his colleagues have thus shown that a mechanical arm can be controlled remotely by the brain of a person with paralysis. Controlling a true prosthetic—an arm that is attached to the individual’s body—will be trickier, but in time even that may be possible. In the meantime, a robotic arm attached to (say) a wheelchair will be a real boon. For people who have little or no ability to move their arms Dr Donoghue’s work promises liberation in the form of quotidian action that the able-bodied take for granted.
诺霍教授和他的同事展示出一种可以由麻痹的人的大脑远程控制的机械手臂。控制一个真正的假肢——安装在人身体上的那种是很难处理好的，但是最后也有可能变成现实。同时，安装在轮椅上的机械手臂才是患者真正的福音。对于那些没有能力移动手臂的人，诺霍教授的工作能够使他们像正常人一样自由地生活。
仿生学——我想来点咖啡
更新于2015年06月29日
来源于原版英语
HELPING yourself to a cup of coffee may seem like a small, everyday thing. But not if you are quadriplegic. Unlike paraplegics, for whom the robotic legs described in the previous article are being developed, quadriplegics have lost the use of all four limbs. Yet thanks to a project organised by John Donoghue ofBrownUniversity, inRhode Island, and his colleagues, they too have hope. One of the participants in his experiments, a 58-year-old woman who is unable to use any of her limbs, can now pick up a bottle containing coffee and bring it close enough to her mouth to drink from it using a straw. She does so using a thought-controlled robotic arm fixed to a nearby stand. It is the first time she has managed something like that since she
suffered a stroke, nearly 15 years ago.
喝一杯咖啡看似是一件日常小事，但前提是你并非四肢瘫患。这与下身麻痹者不同，四肢瘫痪者的四肢均不能正常工作，之前文章中曾有所描述，能够帮助他们的机械腿正在研发当中。多亏了朗大学的约翰多诺霍教授在罗德岛和他的同事正在进行的项目，患者看到了希望。一名实验的参与者——一名四肢瘫痪的58岁的女性，现在已经可以拿动一杯咖啡并且送到嘴边上用吸管饮用。这一成果的实现得益于一个固定在其附近的由思维控制的机械手臂。这是她在15年前中风瘫痪后第一次能成功应付一些事情。
Arms are more complicated pieces of machinery than legs, so controlling them via electrodes attached to the skin of someone’s scalp is not yet possible. Instead, brain activity has to be recorded directly. And that is what Dr Donoghue is doing. Both his female participant and a second individual, a man of 66 also paralysed by a stroke, have worked with him before, as a result of which they have had small, multichannel electrodes implanted in the parts of the motor cortexes of their brains associated with hand movements. The woman’s implant was put there in 2005; the man’s five months before the latest trial, described in a paper just published in Nature.
手臂是比腿更加复杂的机械部件，所以通过附着于人头皮上的皮肤电极来实现控制的技术尚未实现。相反，大脑活动的记录却直截了当，这就是诺霍教授所做的研究。他的女性参与者和另一个参与者——之前就曾与他一起共事过的66岁的中风瘫患者，他们在制手臂运动的大脑运动皮质中都有一个小的，多通道电极。根据最近《自然》杂志发表的一篇文章，女性参与者的电极在2005年植入，男性参与者的电极在最近实验前的5个月植入。
Dr Donoghue and his team decoded signals from their participants’ brains as they were asked to imagine controlling a robotic arm making preset movements. The volunteers were then encouraged to operate one of two robot arms by thinking about the movements they wanted to happen. When the software controlling the arms detected the relevant signals, the arms moved appropriately.
参与者被要求设想出一种能够控制机械手臂来做预设运动的场景，从而诺霍教授和他的团队能从实验参与者的大脑里解码出信号。志愿者则被鼓励通过想象他们希望发生的动作来操作一两种机器人手臂。当软件控制机械手臂搜索到相关信号时，手臂就能做出适当的移动回应。
The arm that the woman used to help herself to a drink is a lightweight device developed by DLR,Germany’s Aerospace Centre, as part of its robotics programme. The other, known as a DEKA arm, is being developed inAmericaspecifically as a prosthetic for those who have lost an arm. Normally, it is operated by the wearer moving his chest or moving his toes over buttons in a shoe. The participants used it to reach and grasp a ball made of foam rubber.
那位女性参与者用来帮助自己喝水的轻便装置由德国航空航天中心研发制成，是作为其机器人计划的一部分。另一种，即德克手臂，是美国公司特意为那些丧失手臂的人制造的假肢。通常的，它由佩戴者移动胸部或是鞋里面脚趾头上的按钮进行操作。参与者用它触碰泡沫橡胶球。
Dr Donoghue and his colleagues have thus shown that a mechanical arm can be controlled remotely by the brain of a person with paralysis. Controlling a true prosthetic—an arm that is attached to the individual’s body—will be trickier, but in time even that may be possible. In the meantime, a robotic arm attached to (say) a wheelchair will be a real boon. For people who have little or no ability to move their arms Dr Donoghue’s work promises liberation in the form of quotidian action that the able-bodied take for granted.
诺霍教授和他的同事展示出一种可以由麻痹的人的大脑远程控制的机械手臂。控制一个真正的假肢——安装在人身体上的那种是很难处理好的，但是最后也有可能变成现实。同时，安装在轮椅上的机械手臂才是患者真正的福音。对于那些没有能力移动手臂的人，诺霍教授的工作能够使他们像正常人一样自由地生活。
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