, a UW professor and a researcher at the Washington National Primate Research Center, reported that by not having to decode complex neural signals to control a computer or robotic, direct muscle stimulation may give people more natural control of their movements.

In their experiments, monkeys were enabled to flex and extend their wrist to play a video game by artificially stimulating arbitrarily chosen motor cortex cells in their brains. The monkeys' wrist nerves were temporarily numbed with a local anesthetic, which paralyzed the muscles, according to the report. But despite the nerve block, the monkeys still were able to control the contraction strength of their wrist muscles. University scientists noted that controlling the strength of the muscle contraction is what allows someone to gently pick up an egg or grab tightly to a handrail.

"Nearly every motor cortex neuron we tested in the brain could be used to control the stimulation of the wrist muscles," said Chet Moritz, a UW senior fellow and lead author on the study. He added that even brain cells initially unrelated to movement could be controlled and used to stimulate muscles.

The university reported that about 10 more years of research will be needed before this research could be applied in human patients.