Chapin's robo-rats minus the rats

The interwebs have had chatter recently about the use of rat-type biomimetic technology for wiggling through caves and cave ins. Below is a video clip of something similar done at SUNY, where rats were influenced to traverse a terrain under the control of stimulating electrodes in the barrel cortex.

Brief aside: For those of you not in the know on the world wide fever know as rat whisker barrel cortex, the idea is pretty simple: rats, which are nocturnal, navigate be feeling the deflections in their whiskers. When examining the somatosensory cortex, very distinct topography exists, and the individual whiskers can be seen. This is a semi-old finding, but important because it shows a direct relationship between some type of externally sense phenomenon and cortical arrangement (here's the Wikipedia entry for a little more). At SUNY, they placed stimulating electrodes in these 'barrel', and basically fooled the rat into thinking that it was brushing up against an obstacle to steer it.



Well, a secondary thing that has come of this is what has made the news: active sensing. Scientists in Israel have decided to build robots based on this idea. Many tiny little fingers with several integrated sensors on each feel and ID objects as it burrows around. Nifty, and a reason to recap roborats.

Tips to: Medgadget, Physorg, IO9

Loreal's upcoming market

Do you have sensitive skin? No, I'm not talking mixed complexion in the T region, I'm talking about synthetic skin. Plenty o' reports, so you don't need me to ramble.

New senses

OMG I feel like this cold is going to kill me. Ugh.

Anyhow, bitching aside, Reddit caught what I am assuming is actually an older article on Wired on the idea of adding new senses by harnessing plasticity. Let's set aside the idea that all our more primitive portions of neural gooeyness are not designed to just lump new senses on top of old ones, what would be considered a "new sense"?

Some eels can detect distortions in a self generated electromagnetic field around their bodies, but that's all I can really think of off hand. Generally, there is a very basic fallacy that all these articles miss: transducing one phenomena into another sense violates the idea of bringing into existence a new sense. In other words, like in this article, adding vibrotactile pads to indicate the distance above the ground (by vibration frequency) is not really "sensing" gravity. You're sensing vibrational frequency. If you lose the ability to detect haptic feedback, you lose your "gravity" sense. The same is not true of our other senses. But, to play Devil's advocate, at a base level everything is transformed into nerve impulses. And yet, to play the Devil's Devil's advocate (I swear that's the title of a heavy metal song), each of our senses as its own wiring that is oodles more complicated than "sensation A is detected by cell type A, and then that just goes to 'the brain'".

Anyhow, a similar self-mutilation type version was discussed earlier on DNI, and the article links to the writer's blog, which is decent, though not updated very often. Worthy of an RSS sub at least.

In da newz

Ah vacation. So nice. Here's what hit my radar the past few days...

The technique used by Dr Kuiken at Northwestern for control a robotic limb has been turned on its head, and used to supply touch sensation. Place some haptic sensors on the artificial arm, wire them up to various DRG afferents/efferents, and supply a little juice. (2nd report here.)

MIT, trying to map the whole damn brain. Pffft. Amateurs. Why don't they just stick to wearable motion capture systems?



Ah exoskeletons. How be-est the so rad? (Play the video above.)

DLR had their wares in the news a bit. Yay robots!

Surgery gets all touchy-feely

Sensory feedback is one of those annoying little essential aspects to developing good interfaces. Just look at the iPhone. What are people complaining about the most, besides AT&T's general status as a crappy necessity? The lack of buttons. So why is it surprising that surgery should be any different? Routing around in someone's gut with only a poor sense of elasticity seems awfully crude/dangerous/concerning.

Researchers at Concordia University have developed a tactile feedback system for minimally invasive surgery. The development uses some pretty interesting techniques, which i will leave you to read by your lonesome. In the same week, there was also news of a "tangible 3D" touch interface by a Japanese company, caught by Gizmodo. The whole idea of force feedback is obviously nothing new, and if you want some commercial options, check here or here.

Synesthesia redux

The Nature Neuroscience synesthesia study cited by the post a few days ago was this one. Enjoy!