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frmercado's avatar
frmercado
Honored Guest
12 years ago

Follow up to research on brain implants and VR feeling.

Does anyone know if Oculus VR or any other Virtual Reality tech company ever looked into the research done by Duke University regarding brain implants and their ability to make Macaques (monkeys) feel the texture of virtual objects?

I attached the link to the scientific journal Nature where it was published a couple of years ago:

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/news.2011.576.html

I know this research has no possible short term applications, and that it will be well into the future until this sort of research can even begin to be tested on humans. Notwithstanding, I'd like to know what the community involved on the forefront of Virtual Reality think of the possibilities of such a technology or even if such a technology could actually be compatible with any VR commercial applications in the future and not just the obvious applications on the medical field?

I am currently doing some research on this subject but there seems to be very little information on the matter out there, specially when it comes to any Virtual Reality commercial applications.

I think the potential for this technology, at least in theory, would be tremendous, I just don't know if there are any incentives for this research to produce any real world applications or even the slightest interest by the mainstream VR community on it.

Any information and opinions would be very welcome.

Thank you.

3 Replies

  • dwood15's avatar
    dwood15
    Protege
    12 years ago
    Hello mercado! I don't have an answer to your question, per se, but I do have more studies and resources that i've looked up and got bookmarked via extensive research (extreme googling and talking to other researchers about it, reddit's got a bit of people that research it on their science subreddits). If you want, I can link you a few of the studies. If you want, however, there's a lot you can find just by using the proper terms when you google. Search on reddit is also good too, because that actually has comments and discussion going on.

    I, too, have been combing through journal articles looking for things that apply directly to VR.

    I've come to realize that the biggest barrier to the development of commercial virtual reality, a la sword art online, or other media that depicts 'plugging in', are the legal and ethical barriers to the research. The problem is not incentive, but our current laws. Right now, people are allowed to experiment with monkeys in the usa without too much hassle, and there are currently clinical trials to give a bionic limb to paralyzed patients via bci (brain to computer interfaces), but it requires a lot more money than it's worth. If there were reliable research groups in other countries that didn't have the same boundaries, I really think the tech would explode.

    I think the potential for this technology, at least in theory, would be tremendous, I just don't know if there are any incentives for this research to produce any real world applications or even the slightest interest by the mainstream VR community on it.


    I agree, wholeheartedly! At the very least we learn more about who we are, as humans. The person who has that knowledge is the person that can shape our future.

    I have a few links on my ipad (or i'd post them here) for further study. There's also a few articles I got by emailing authors (published studies tell you what the state of the art for the subject really means)

    http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showthread.php?77721-quot-Smart-quot-Neural-Prosthesis

    The first groups to convince, however, are ethics groups and lawmakers. If oculus' full vision really is a matrix-level of immersion, they have these boundaries to jump over first and foremost. For now, though, the headsets are pretty cool.
  • saviornt's avatar
    saviornt
    Protege
    12 years ago
    Somewhere on this forum is a thread about creating a real "Sword Art Online".. there is actually some good information in it on the different techs that would need to be involved. I don't have a link to it, but I'm sure you can search for it.