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On June 12, 2014, precisely at 3:33
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in a balmy winter afternoon
in São Paulo, Brazil,
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a typical South American winter afternoon,
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this kid, this young man
that you see celebrating here
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like he had scored a goal,
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Juliano Pinto, 29 years old,
accomplished a magnificent deed.
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Despite being paralyzed
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and not having any sensation
from mid-chest to the tip of his toes
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as the result of a car crash six years ago
that killed his brother
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and produced a complete spinal cord lesion
that left Juliano in a wheelchair,
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Juliano rose to the occasion,
and on this day did something
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that pretty much everybody that saw him
in the six years deemed impossible.
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Juliano Pinto delivered the opening kick
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of the 2014 Brazilian
World Soccer Cup here
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just by thinking.
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He could not move his body,
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but he could imagine the movements
needed to kick a ball.
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He was an athlete before the lesion.
He's a para-athlete right now.
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He's going to be in the Paralympic Games,
I hope, in a couple years.
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But what the spinal cord lesion
did not rob from Juliano
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was his ability to dream.
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And dream he did that afternoon,
for a stadium of about 75,000 people
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and an audience of close to a billion
watching on TV.
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And that kick crowned, basically,
30 years of basic research
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studying how the brain,
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how this amazing universe
that we have between our ears
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that is only comparable to universe
that we have above our head
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because it has about 100 billion elements
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talking to each other
through electrical brainstorms,
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what Juliano accomplished
took 30 years to imagine in laboratories
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and about 15 years to plan.
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When John Chapin and I,
15 years ago, proposed in a paper
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that we would build something
that we called a brain-machine interface,
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meaning connecting a brain to devices
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so that animals and humans
could just move these devices,
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no matter how far they are
from their own bodies,
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just by imagining what they want to do,
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our colleagues told us that
we actually needed professional help,
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of the psychiatry variety.
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And despite that,
a Scot and a Brazilian persevered,
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because that's how we were raised
in our respective countries,
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and for 12, 15 years,
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we made demonstration after demonstration
suggesting that this was possible.
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And a brain-machine interface
is not rocket science,
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it's just brain research.
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It's nothing but using sensors
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to read the electrical brainstorms
that a brain is producing
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to generate the motor commands
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that have to be downloaded
to the spinal cord,
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so we projected sensors that can read
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hundreds and now thousands
of these brain cells simultaneously,
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and extract from these electrical signals
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the motor planning
that the brain is generating
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to actually make us move into space.
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And by doing that, we converted
these signals into digital commands
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that any mechanical, electronic,
or even a virtual device can understand
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so that the subject can imagine
what he, she or it wants to make move,
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and the device obeys that brain command.
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By sensorizing these devices
with lots of different types of sensors,
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as you are going to see in a moment,
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we actually sent messages
back to the brain to confirm
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that that voluntary motor will
was being enacted, no matter where --
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next to the subject, next door,
or across the planet.
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And as this message gave feedback
back to the brain,
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the brain realized its goal:
to make us move.
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So this is just one experiment
that we published a few years ago,
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where a monkey, without moving its body,
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learned to control the movements
of an avatar arm,
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a virtual arm that doesn't exist.
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What you're listening to
is the sound of the brain of this monkey
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as it explores three different
visually identical spheres
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in virtual space.
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And to get a reward,
a drop of orange juice that monkeys love,
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this animal has to detect,
select one of these objects
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by touching,
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not by seeing it, by touching it,
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because every time this virtual hand
touches one of the objects,
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an electrical pulse goes back
to the brain of the animal
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describing the fine texture
of the surface of this object,
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so the animal can judge what is
the correct object that he has to grab,
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and if he does that, he gets a reward
without moving a muscle.
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The perfect Brazilian lunch:
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not moving a muscle
and getting your orange juice.
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So as we saw this happening,
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we actually came and proposed the idea
that we had published 15 years ago.
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We reenacted this paper.
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We got it out of the drawers,
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and we proposed that perhaps we could get
a human being that is paralyzed
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to actually use the brain-machine
interface to regain mobility.
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The idea was that if you suffered --
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and that can happen to any one of us.
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Let me tell you, it's very sudden.
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It's a millisecond of a collision,
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a car accident that
transforms your life completely.
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If you have a complete lesion
of the spinal cord,
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you cannot move because your brainstorms
cannot reach your muscles.
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However, your brainstorms
continue to be generated in your head.
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Paraplegic, quadriplegic patients
dream about moving every night.
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They have that inside their head.
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The problem is how
to get that code out of it
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and make the movement be created again.
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So what we proposed was,
let's create a new body.
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Let's create a robotic vest.
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And that's exactly why Juliano could
kick that ball just by thinking,
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because he was wearing
the first brain-controlled robotic vest
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that can be used by paraplegic,
quadriplegic patients to move
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and to regain feedback.
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That was the original idea, 15 years ago.
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What I'm going to show you is how
156 people from 25 countries
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all over the five continents
of this beautiful Earth,
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dropped their lives,
dropped their patents,
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dropped their dogs, wives,
kids, school, jobs,
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and congregated to come to Brazil
for 18 months to actually get this done.
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Because a couple years after Brazil
was awarded the World Cup,
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we heard that the Brazilian government
wanted to do something meaningful
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in the opening ceremony
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in the country that reinvented
and perfected soccer
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until we met the Germans, of course.
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(Laughter)
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But that's a different talk,
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and a different neuroscientist
needs to talk about that.
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But what Brazil wanted to do
is to showcase
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a completely different country,
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a country that values science
and technology,
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and can give a gift to millions,
25 million people around the world
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that cannot move any longer
because of a spinal cord injury.
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Well, we went to the Brazilian government
and to FIFA and proposed,
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well, let's have the kickoff
of the 2014 World Cup
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be given by a Brazilian paraplegic
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using a brain-controlled exoskeleton
that allows him to kick the ball
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and to feel the contact of the ball.
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They looked at us,
thought that we were completely nuts,
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and said, "Okay, let's try."
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We had 18 months to do everything
from zero, from scratch.
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We had no exoskeleton, we had no patients,
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we had nothing done.
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These people came all together
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and in 18 months, we got eight patients
in a routine of training
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and basically built from nothing this guy,
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that we call Bra-Santos Dumont 1.
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The first brain-controlled
exoskeleton to be built
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was named after the most famous
Brazilian scientist ever,
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Alberto Santos Dumont,
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who, on October 19, 1901,
created and flew himself
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the first controlled airship on air
in Paris for a million people to see.
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Sorry, my American friends,
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I live in North Carolina,
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but it was two years
before the Wright Brothers flew
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on the coast of North Carolina.
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(Applause)
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Flight control is Brazilian.
(Laughter)
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So we went together with these guys
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and we basically put
this exoskeleton together,
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15 degrees of freedom,
hydraulic machine
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that can be commanded by brain signals
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recorded by a non-invasive technology
called electroencephalography
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that can basically allow the patient
to imagine the movements
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and send his commands
to the controls, the motors,
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and get it done.
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This exoskeleton was covered
with an artificial skin
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invented by Gordon Cheng,
one of my greatest friends, in Munich,
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to allow sensation from the joints moving
and the foot touching the ground
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to be delivered back to the patient
through a vest, a shirt.
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It is a smart shirt
with micro-vibrating elements
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that basically delivers the feedback
and fools the patient's brain
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by creating a sensation that it is not
a machine that is carrying him,
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but it is he who is walking again.
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So we got this going,
and what you'll see here
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is the first time one of our patients,
Bruno, actually walked.
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And he takes a few seconds
because we are setting everything,
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and you are going to see a blue light
cutting in front of the helmet
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because Bruno is going to imagine
the movement that needs to be performed,
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the computer is going to analyze it,
Bruno is going to certify it,
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and when it is certified,
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the device starts moving
under the command of Bruno's brain.
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And he just got it right,
and now he starts walking.
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After nine years without
being able to move,
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he is walking by himself.
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And more than that --
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(Applause) --
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more than just walking,
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he is feeling the ground,
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and if the speed of the exo goes up,
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he tells us that he is walking again
on the sand of Santos,
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the beach resort where he used to go
before he had the accident.
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That's why the brain is creating
a new sensation in Bruno's head.
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So he walks, and at the end of the walk --
I am running out of time already --
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he says, "You know, guys,
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I need to borrow this thing from you
when I get married,
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because I wanted to walk to the priest
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and see my bride and actually
be there by myself.
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Of course, he will have it
whenever he wants.
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And this is what we wanted to show
during the World Cup, and couldn't,
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because for some mysterious reason,
FIFA cut its broadcast in half.
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What you are going to see very quickly
is Juliano Pinto in the exo doing the kick
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a few minutes before we went to the pitch
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and did the real thing
in front of the entire crowd,
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and the lights you are going to see
just describe the operation.
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Basically, the blue lights pulsating
indicate that the exo is ready to go.
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It can receive thoughts
and it can deliver feedback,
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and when Juliano
makes the decision to kick the ball,
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you are going to see
two streams of green and yellow light
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coming from the helmet
and going to the legs,
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representing the mental commands
that were taken by the exo
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to actually make that happen.
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And in basically 13 seconds,
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Juliano actually did.
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You can see the commands.
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He gets ready,
the ball is set, and he kicks.
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And the most amazing thing is,
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10 seconds after he did that,
and looked at us on the pitch,
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he told us, celebrating as you saw,
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"I felt the ball."
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And that's priceless.
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(Applause)
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So where is this going to go?
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I have two minutes to tell you
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that it's going to the limits
of your imagination.
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Brain-actuating technology is here.
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This is the latest: We just
published this a year ago,
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the first brain-to-brain interface
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that allows two animals
to exchange mental messages
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so that one animal that sees something
coming from the environment
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can send a mental SMS,
a torpedo, a neurophysiological torpedo,
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to the second animal,
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and the second animal performs
the act that he needed to perform
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without ever knowing what
the environment was sending as a message,
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because the message came
from the first animal's brain.
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So this is the first demo.
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I'm going to be very quick
because I want to show you the latest.
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But what you see here
is the first rat getting informed
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by a light that is going to show up
on the left of the cage
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that he has to press the left cage
to basically get a reward.
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He goes there and does it.
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And the same time,
he is sending a mental message
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to the second rat
that didn't see any light,
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and the second rat,
in 70 percent of the times
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is going to press the left lever
and get a reward
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without ever experiencing
the light in the retina.
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Well, we took this
to a little higher limit
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by getting monkeys to collaborate
mentally in a brain net,
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basically to donate their brain activity
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and combine them to move
the virtual arm that I showed you before,
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and what you see here is the first time
the two monkeys combine their brains,
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synchronize their brains perfectly
to get this virtual arm to move.
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One monkey is controlling the x dimension,
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the other monkey
is controlling the y dimension.
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But it gets a little more interesting
when you get three monkeys in there
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and you ask one monkey to control x and y,
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the other monkey to control y and z,
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and the third one to control x and z,
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and you make them all
play the game together,
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moving the arm in 3D into a target
to get the famous Brazilian orange juice.
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And they actually do.
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The black dot is the average
of all these brains working
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in parallel, in real time.
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That is the definition
of a biological computer,
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interacting by brain activity
and achieving a motor goal.
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Where is this going?
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We have no idea.
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We're just scientists.
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(Laughter)
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We are paid to be children,
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to basically go to the edge
and discover what is out there.
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But one thing I know:
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one day, in a few decades,
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when our grandchildren
surf the net just by thinking,
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or a mother donates her eyesight
to an autistic kid who cannot see,
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or somebody speaks because
of a brain-to-brain bypass,
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some of you will remember
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that it all started on a winter afternoon
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in a Brazilian soccer field
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with an impossible kick.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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Moderator: Miguel,
thank you for sticking to your time.
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I actually would have given you
a couple more minutes,
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because there are a couple of points
we want to develop, and, of course,
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clearly it seems that we need connected
brains to figure out where this is going.
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So let's connect all this together.
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So if I'm understanding correctly,
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one of the monkeys
is actually getting a signal
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and the other monkey
is reacting to that signal
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just because the first one is receiving
and transmitting the neurological impulse.
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Miguel Nicolelis:
No, it's a little different.
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No monkey knows of the existence
of the other two monkeys.
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They are getting a visual feedback in 2D,
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but the task they have
to accomplish is 3D.
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They have to move an arm
in three dimensions.
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But each monkey is only getting
the two dimensions on the video screen
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that the monkey controls.
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And to get that thing done,
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you need at least two monkeys
to synchronize their brains,
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but the ideal is three.
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So what we found out is that
when one monkey starts slacking down,
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the other two monkeys
enhance their performance
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to get the guy to come back,
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so this adjusts dynamically,
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but the global synchrony remains the same.
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Now, if you flip
without telling the monkey
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the dimensions that each brain
has to control,
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like this guy is controlling x and y,
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but he should be controlling now y and z,
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instantaneously, that animal's brain
forgets about the old dimensions
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and it starts concentrating
on the new dimensions.
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So what I need to say is
that no Turing machine,
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no computer can predict
what a brain net will do.
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So we will absorb technology
as part of us.
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Technology will never absorb us.
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It's simply impossible.
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Moderator: How many times
have you tested this?
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And how many times
have you succeeded versus failed?
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MN: Oh, tens of times.
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With the three monkeys?
Oh, several times.
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I wouldn't be able to talk about this here
unless I had done it a few times.
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And I forgot to mention, because of time,
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that just three weeks ago,
a European group
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just demonstrated the first
man-to-man brain-to-brain connection.
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There was one bit of information,
but big ideas they start in a humble way,
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but basically the brain activity
of one subject
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was transmitted to a second object,
all non-invasive technology.
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So the first subject got a message
like our rats, a visual message,
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and transmitted to the second subject.
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The second subject received
a magnetic pulse in the visual cortex,
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or a different pulse,
two different pulses.
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In one pulse, the subject saw something.
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On the other pulse,
he saw something different.
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And he was able to verbally indicate
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what was the message
the first subject was sending
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through the Internet across continents.
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Moderator: Wow.
Okay, that's where we are going.
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That's the next TEDTalk
at the next TED Conference.
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Miguel Nicolelis, thank you.
MN: Thank you, Bruno. Thank you.