Chapter 571 Monkey who loves to play games

Author: Riding a pig to dig a hole

Chapter 571 Monkey who loves to play games

The next day, neuroscience laboratory.

There is a small conference room and a long oval table, with four people sitting scattered around.

The new core team members are gathering together, gearing up for a big fight.

"Old Chen, I just want to ask, how is your research on motor nerves and brain-computer interfaces? To what stage are you at?"

As soon as he sat down, Wang Dali couldn't wait to ask.

He is very interested in this project and feels that he has a great responsibility, so he wants to know as much as possible so that he can get started immediately.

Chen Yiqing opened the ppt and said in a deep voice: "This is exactly what I want to introduce today. Please look at the big screen."

"Research on brain-computer interfaces has been ongoing around the world for more than ten years, so it is not difficult to catch up and reach the current level."

"Currently we have done some animal experiments and they have all been successful, including experiments on the brains of primates."

As he spoke, a picture of a monkey appeared on the projection screen.

This monkey is no different from the common monkeys in the mountains. The only difference is that it wears a hat on its head.

The hat seems to be glued firmly to the top of its head using adhesive.

"This is a macaque, and like many humans, it's a video game addict."

"We spent several months teaching it to play games."

"It started out as a game of catching peaches."

"Put it in front of a display screen. When the game starts, the peaches will fall one by one from the top of the display screen."

"At this time, it needs to use its right hand to grab a joystick in front of it, move the fruit basket at the bottom of the screen, and quickly catch the falling peaches."

"There is a tube under the monitor. Whenever the monkey catches a peach, a pine nut will fall out of the tube. The monkey will grab it and quickly stuff it into his mouth."

"This monkey likes eating pine nuts very much. In order to get the reward of pine nuts and become addicted to snacks, it fell in love with video games."

"However, after playing this game for a long time, it seemed a little boring, so we tried many other games."

"Finally found three of its most popular games."

"Every time when you get tired of playing one game, you can switch to another of the three games and you can play it with great interest again."

Chen Yiqing eloquently introduced the experimental animal and even played a video of a monkey playing a game.

Sure enough, as he said, the monkey in the video, wearing a hat, was dancing and happily playing a simple computer game on the screen.

He is naturally elegant and dignified in manners. In addition, his articulation is clear and his words are interesting. When he talks about professional scientific experiments, he can also make people feel like spring breeze.

After playing the video, Chen Yiqing waved the laser pointer in his hand and returned to the ppt interface.

The red laser point moved next to the monkey.

The structure of the hat worn by the monkey is displayed there.

It turns out that there are four plastic connectors connected to the bottom of the hat. Each connector is connected to several metal micro-transmission arrays and can receive nerve signals from them.

"We implanted several microtransmission line arrays in the brain of a monkey, collected many movement-related neural electrical signals, constructed the monkey's hand movement program, and performed a simple mechanical reproduction."

"Please see, these metal micro-wire arrays are carefully placed into the monkey's brain. They are placed in the extraspace of the nerve cells that are filled with fluid and contain a small amount of salt, and they focus on collecting the electrical sparks emitted by the neurons."

"A microtransmission array was placed a few millimeters beneath various regions of the prefrontal and parietal lobes, areas associated with primate visual-motor vision."

"Primates are able to use these areas to translate visual cues, such as falling fruit or flying mosquitoes, into the hand movements needed to move a mechanical joystick."

"In addition, several microtransmission line arrays were implanted in the primary motor cortex and other motor cortical areas of the monkey's brain."

"In the monkey's brain, every time a cortical neuron next to a microtransmission wire generates an action potential, a small current flows through the extracellular space and is detected by the terminals of the microtransmission wire."

"The charges from all the microwires are pooled together and transferred to a connected microchip at the top."

The laser pointer in Chen Yiqing's hand stopped in the middle of the hat.

"This is a neuron chip. Each plastic connector corresponds to a neuron chip. There are four in total. The electronic devices inside it can amplify and filter the tiny electrical signals generated by neurons."

"Each neuron chip has a small bundle of wires sticking out of the hat and connected to a computer in a soundproof cabinet next to it. The computer is responsible for converting the monkey's thoughts into a stream of digital signals.

"These digital signal streams will control the movements of the two robotic arms in the next room based on the thoughts of the monkey's brain."

Having said this, Chen Yiqing smiled: "Of course, I am just introducing the specific working principle. This lovely macaque is currently in our laboratory. If you are interested, you can meet it after the meeting and observe it.

Here’s an image of its neural activity while playing games.”

Wang Dali blurted out: "Can monkeys also play games?"

"Yes, monkeys can not only play games, but they are also very agile, no worse than some people."

Chen Yiqing nodded, as if he suddenly thought of something funny, and his eyes involuntarily drifted to Wen Renlong beside him.

Wen Renlong was listening quietly, but when he saw Chen Yiqing's eyes, his face immediately darkened, he snorted and turned his head to the side.

Wang Dali's curiosity suddenly burst out, and he quickly asked: "Chen Bo, Boss Chen, what is going on? It makes me happy to talk about it. Is it related to Wen Renlong?"

Chen Yiqing hesitated for a moment, but Zhang Li next to him burst out laughing.

"Actually, it's nothing. Just a few months ago, when we were training the monkeys to play a game, someone happened to be watching and said that he also liked playing this game and could train the monkeys for him."

"As you know, training a monkey is a hassle, so we were happy to give him the task of training one of the games."

"As a result, after training for more than a month, the monkey started playing this game and beat the master." Zhang Li covered her mouth and laughed so hard.

"Hahaha~" Wang Dali let out a burst of laughter and looked at Wen Renlong in disbelief: "No way, what kind of game is this? Monkeys can play it better than people."

"Whack-a-mole." Chen Yiqing uttered one word briefly and explained: "Monkeys react very quickly, 3-5 times faster than humans. Aaron's defeat is understandable. After all, this is not an intellectual game.

"

Wang Dali was silent for a moment. He suddenly remembered that he had played this game before, and it seemed that his results were not very good.

After all, human beings' strength lies in their intelligence. In terms of arm reaction speed, they cannot compare with many animals.

He glanced at Wen Renlong with sympathetic eyes and thought: "Fortunately, I'm not stupid enough to compete with a monkey on my reaction speed."

Zhang Li said with a smile: "The monkey seems to like this simple tapping game, and there are rewards for playing the game. Every time he hits a gopher, he gets pine nuts to eat. The positive feedback is very strong. Think about Mount Emei

In order to grab food, the monkeys even beat people, let alone whack-a-mole."

After hearing this, Wang Dali felt even more sympathetic to Wen Renlong.

Wild monkeys dare to punch humans hard for food. The monkeys in the laboratory naturally tried their best to play the game in order to get snack rewards.

Not to mention Wen Renlong, a crispy scholar sitting in an office, even if he were an e-sports player, the outcome would be hard to say.

Zhang Li thought for a while and then added: "I have read a piece of news that said that in order to eat nuts, wild monkeys will smash them with stones and then eat the fruits inside. You see how hard the monkeys work to eat.

They all use tools like humans."

She covered her mouth and chuckled: "Netizens say that these monkeys have entered the Stone Age."

"Hahaha~" Wang Dali grinned and laughed.

"Ahem~" Chen Yi cleared his throat and said, "Okay, let's get back to the topic and continue talking about monkeys, no, let's talk about neural activity."

"Here, I want to explain some neuroscience principles related to primates, including humans."

Chen Yiqing raised his arm, pressed the switch, turned the laser pointer on and off, and then said.

"Look at my hands. In order to achieve the purpose of switching, the fingers will make pressing movements. Most people will definitely think that these movements are completed by the brain directly controlling every nerve and then manipulating all the muscles."

"Actually, that's not the case."

"The brains of humans, oh, probably all primates, will think before making an action, conceive in advance the actions that the arm and hand muscles should complete, and then send a complete set of action programs to the nerves

The system is transmitted to the arm to complete these actions."

"Using a monkey as an analogy, when it is thinking about how to play this game, the implanted micro-transmission line array preferentially detects the electrical signals in its cerebral cortex before its hands start to move."

"You see, our brain is very smart. It is a well-deserved control center and an absolute dictator."

"Through your daily behavior, the brain knows what actions your limbs must complete to complete a goal."

"It will conceive in advance, analyze each specific action, form a set of action programs, and then send out nerve and electrical signals one by one to drive your body to complete all actions."

"This is also the reason why patients will become completely paralyzed after losing the spinal cord, the connection center between the brain and the body."

"Because the body has lost the command of the brain, it cannot make any small movements, and it does not know how to do it."

"The muscle cells in your arm used to only execute the instructions of the brain, just rotate and jump with eyes closed, but now there is no message coming through, and they can't even tell the difference between forward and backward."

"Of course, for some actions that are performed countless times every day, a conditioned reflex has been formed for the brain, and it will run spontaneously and be completed before you are conscious."

"For example, walking, eating, opening doors, getting up, and even driving."

"These are low-power maintenance actions for the brain. They are completed automatically without you using your brain."

"Whether it's over your head or not, the principles of these two behaviors are the same. It's just that one is more obvious and the other is more obscure."

"In any case, these behaviors can be detected through neural signals."
To be continued...