A “mini-brain” that can respond to its surroundings.
A year ago, we reported on scientists training brain cells in petri dishes to play the world’s first arcade game, Pong! “News.
Through external electrical stimulation, these cultivated brain cells can be guided to respond to the position of the ball, thus completing the basic operation of “playing the game”.
According to the BBC, the Australian technology company called “Cortical labs” has recently made new progress. In the experiment a year ago, the brain cells in the petri dish came from human brain and mouse brain respectively. In the comparative experiment at that time, the experimenters found that the game level of human brain cells was generally higher than that of mouse brains.
Now, scientists have made new progress – cell populations from humans have been able to complete the initial combination of cells from mice, and a researcher from “Cortical labs” claimed in an interview that he has created the first in a petri dish. A “sentient” experimental brain tissue. Although it still makes mistakes in the game, it has a significantly higher probability of blocking the ball than a random operation.
“We couldn’t find a better term to describe this kind of device that can take information from external sources, process it, and finally react in real time,” explained experiment leader Brett Kagan.
Although the brain tissue in these petri dishes has no autonomous consciousness of its own, it can still learn certain skills by understanding and following human rules. Of course, playing games is not the end goal. The significance of this research is that scientists may find new ways to treat mental diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.
According to the introduction, the next direction of the laboratory will be to observe whether the brain tissue can continue to function in “Pong!” under the action of alcohol. 》 performs well in the game, and if it exhibits characteristics similar to the human brain, it will be a better substitute for human drug experiments.
Researchers prefer to use the term “thinking system” to describe this organization of brain cells, arguing that if some information is communicated and used explicitly, it means that the stimuli the cells receive are being “thought” in a fundamental way.
As the experiment progresses, Kagan says the team is working with bioethicists to make sure they don’t accidentally create a conscious brain and other ethical issues.
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