For someone with the current brain-computer interface technology, it takes tremendous concentration and effort to type out a short message on a computer screen.
To emulate this kind of behaviour - albeit in a more simplistic fashion - Dr Rao and his team are developing a hierarchical brain-computer interface for controlling the robot.
Using videogame software code, he has built a virtual reality arm based on an arm wired with FES. Donoghue translates brain signals, and Kirsch uses them to drive the arm on a computer screen.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center andthe Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have partnered together on a successful trial for a brain-computer interface that allows a person to control a robotic arm using only their thoughts.