经济学人下载:仿生学 我想来点咖啡

Science and technology
科学技术

Bionics
仿生学

I think I'd like some coffee
我想来点咖啡

A paralysed woman gets herself a drink
四肢瘫痪的女人也能自己喝咖啡

HELPING yourself to a cup of coffee may seem like a small, everyday thing.
给自己倒杯咖啡对普通人来说是一件再平常不过的小事，

But not if you are quadriplegic.
但对于一个四肢瘫痪的人来说就不是这样了，

Unlike paraplegics, for whom the robotic legs described in the previous article are being developed, quadriplegics have lost the use of all four limbs.
不像下身麻痹患者，前文中提到的机械腿已经发展得很成熟，但全身瘫痪的人四肢都不能使用，

Yet thanks to a project organised by John Donoghue of Brown University, in Rhode Island, and his colleagues,
现在多亏了罗德岛州布朗大学的John Donoghue和他同事发起的一项计划，

they too have hope.
四肢瘫痪者也有了希望。

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.
在他的实验中有一位58岁的女患者，她四肢瘫痪，但她现在能够拿起一瓶咖啡并送到嘴边，再用吸管喝下，

She does so using a thought-controlled robotic arm fixed to a nearby stand.
她完成这个动作是靠思想控制固定在旁边的机械臂，

It is the first time she has managed something like that since she suffered a stroke, nearly 15 years ago.
这也是她15年前中风以来，第一次像这样掌控一些东西。

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.
由于手臂上的机械零件比腿更复杂，所以通过依附在头皮上的电极来控制它们不大现实，

Instead, brain activity has to be recorded directly.
而大脑活动是可以被检测到的。

And that is what Dr Donoghue is doing.
这就是Donoghue博士所做的事情。

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.
不仅那个女患者，还有一个66岁的男中风患者也参与了他的实验，Donoghue博士先找到参与者大脑中控制手活动的区域，再把一些小型多波段电极植入该运动皮质。

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.
根据刚刚发表在《自然》杂志上的论文，女患者在2005年就植入了，而男患者的最新植入才5个月。

Dr Donoghue and his team decoded signals from their participants' brains as they were asked to imagine controlling a robotic arm making preset movements.
Donoghue博士和他的团队先设定一个动作，让参与者想象通过机械臂去完成它，这个过程中大脑的信号就会被记录和破译出来。

The volunteers were then encouraged to operate one of two robot arms by thinking about the movements they wanted to happen.
然后Donoghue博士再鼓励他们去控制其中一只机械臂去完成自己想要的动作，

When the software controlling the arms detected the relevant signals, the arms moved appropriately.
机械臂上的控制软件在检测到相关信号之后，机械臂就会进行相应的移动。

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.
能让女患者自己喝水的这个轻量级机械臂来自于DLR，这也是机器人计划的一部分，

The other, known as a DEKA arm, is being developed in America specifically as a prosthetic for those who have lost an arm.
其他的还有DEKA的机械臂，该厂专为残疾人士提供假肢，并且在美国已经相当成熟。

Normally, it is operated by the wearer moving his chest or moving his toes over buttons in a shoe.
一般情况下，穿戴者会通过移动他们的胸部或者用脚趾按鞋子上的按钮来操作，

The participants used it to reach and grasp a ball made of foam rubber.
这样他们还可以抓起泡沫橡胶球。

Dr Donoghue and his colleagues have thus shown that a mechanical arm can be controlled remotely by the brain of a person with paralysis.
Donoghue博士和他的同事证明了瘫痪者可以通过大脑来控制较远的机械臂。

Controlling a true prosthetic—an arm that is attached to the individual's body—will be trickier,
要直接控制安装在身体上的假肢还是比较麻烦，即使理论上是可行的，但是现在把机械臂安装在轮椅上是一个更加实用的好事。

but in time even that may be possible. In the meantime, a robotic arm attached to 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.
对于那些没有能力或者只有有限能力支配他们手臂的患者来说，Donoghue博士的成果解放了他们，让他们也能够完成那些我们认为理所当然的琐事。