This monkey is moving this robotic arm purely by thinking about it. He has a hi-tech brain chip fitted in his head, that enables him to animate the arm using the power of thought.

The mechanical arm mirrors a real arm, with an elbow, wrist and simple hand.

With this device, the monkey can reach out, grab and move a handle by just thinking about it.

As a reward, the monkey gets a sip of water when it completes a task.

Neurobiologist Dr Andrew Schwartz, says the monkeys use the machinery “as if the device had been embodied. So it almost seems like they think of it as part of their own body.”

Schwartz is one of the scientists at Pittsburgh University who is conducting a research project that could bring hope to paralyzed patients.

It could go as far as help “locked-in” patients - those who’ve lost all muscle movement because of spinal chord injuries or conditions like brainstem strokes.

But what is the science behind all this magic?

The monkey has got electrodes implanted into his motor cortex, the brain’s movement control centre.

It picks up pulses within individual neurons.

The signals are then fed to a computer which analyzes their pattern and strength.

It then determines what the monkey is trying to do and translates it into movement of the mechanic arm.

The system is so elaborate that it can correct movements if the arm overshoots the monkey’s intended target.

The monkey does not feel the electrodes in the brain.

At Brown University in New England, scientists have just started a clinical trial of a similar device

Braingate research leader Prof. John Donoghue says “you could have a person who is paralysed with a spinal cord injury be able to, with arm support, reach out and grab a glass of water, bring that glass to their mouth and drink on their own power just by thinking. That would be a huge break through.”

Prof. Donoghue is doing first tests with a prototype used on human beings.

Even though one of the test patients died of an unrelated infection, scientists hope to prove that the technology is safe and effective enough to use on a wider scale.

Prof. Donoghue explains that their goal is “to have a system that is a physical replacement for a broken biological nervous system. So we’d like to have a physical system that senses what is going on in the brain, takes those signals inside your body, routs them off to the muscles, so when you think you move, well that’s just what you or I do, so one day you could be sitting here with a person and you wouldn’t know whether they had a system or not.”

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