By Abby Phillip Over at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPA, there are some pretty amazing (and often top-secret) things going on. But one notable component of a DARPA project was revealed by a Defense Department official at a recent forum, and it is the stuff of science fiction movies. According to DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar, a paralyzed woman was successfully able use her mind to control an F-35 and a single-engine Cessna in a flight simulator. It’s just the latest advance for one woman, 55-year-old Jan Scheuermann, who has been the subject of two years of groundbreaking neurosignaling research. First, Scheuermann began by controlling a robotic arm and accomplishing tasks such as feeding herself a bar of chocolate and giving high fives and thumbs ups. Then, researchers learned that — surprisingly — Scheuermann was able to control both right-hand and left-hand prosthetic arms with just the left motor cortex, which is typically responsible for controlling the right-hand side. After that, Scheuermann decided she was up for a new challenge, according to Prabhakar. “Jan decided that she wanted to try flying a Joint Strike Fighter simulator,” Prabhakar said, prompting laughter from the crowd at the New America Foundation’s Future of War forum. “So Jan got to fly in the

Jan Scheuermann was the first patient to try out a new mind-controlled robot arm being developed at the University of Pittsburgh. Scheuermann, 55, is paralyzed from the neck down by a degenerative condition. She made news at the end of 2012 when she fed herself a bar of chocolate using the arm.

Cathy Hutchinson has been unable to move her own arms or legs for 15 years. But using the most advanced brain-machine interface ever developed, she can steer a robotic arm towards a bottle, pick it up, and drink her morning coffee.

“Cathy Hutchinson used a mind-controlled robotic arm to drink coffee.” By Katie Moisse Cathy Hutchinson is one of two tetraplegic patients able to reach and grasp with a robotic limb linked to tiny sensor in her brain, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. The device, called BrainGate, bypasses the nerve circuits broken by the brainstem stroke and replaces them with wires that run outside Hutchinson’s body. The implanted sensor is about the size of a baby aspirin. “You can go from the brain, which seems to be working quite well, directly to a device like a computer or a robotic arm,” said BrianGate developer John Donoghue, director of the Institute for Brain Science at Brown University in Providence, R.I. “This can help restore independence to a person who was completely reliant on other people for every activity, whether it’s brushing their teeth, eating their dinner or taking a drink.” Hutchinson, who has been unable to move or speak for 15 years, had the 96-channel sensor implanted in her brain’s motor cortex in 2005. Since then, the BrainGate team has been fine-tuning the system to give her back some of the control she lost. “Having control over your life

as he moves the onscreen paddle to block the ball. “C’mon – here you go,” he says, sending a wicked angle shot ricocheting down the screen and past my defense. “Yes!” he says in triumph, his voice hoarse from the ventilator that helps him breathe. “Let’s go again, dude.”