In Scientists were, for the first time, able to show that 800,000 living brain cells trapped in a petri dish can be taught how to play the videogame Pong.
When lab-grown clumps of human neurons are transplanted into newborn rats, they grow with the animals. The research raises some tricky ethical questions.
The DishBrain system was developed to leverage neuronal computation and interact with neurons embodied in a simulated environment (STAR Methods; Figure 4 A; Video S2). The DishBrain environment is a low-latency, real-time system that interacts with the vendor MaxOne software, allowing it to be used in ways that extend its original functions (Figure 4 B). This system can record electrical activity in a neuronal culture and provide “sensory” (non-invasive) electrical stimulation comparably to the generation of action potentials by activity in the neuronal network (
Toward the neurocomputer: image Processing and pattern recognition with neuronal cultures.
Australian and UK researchers grow brain cells in a lab that have learned to play a 1970s video game.
Scientists have transplanted human brain cells into the brains of baby rats, where the cells grew and formed connections.
It’s part of an effort to better study human brain development and diseases affecting this most complex of organs, which makes us who we are but has long been shrouded in mystery.
“Many disorders such as autism and schizophrenia are likely uniquely human” but “the human brain certainly has not been very accessible,” said said Dr. Sergiu Pasca, senior author of a study describing the work, published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Rat–human hybrid brains offer new ways to study human neuro disorders, but also raise ethical questions.
The idea that consciousness is widespread is attractive to many for intellectual and, perhaps, also emotionalreasons. But can it be tested? Surprisingly, perhaps it can.
Summary: Brain cells grown in a petri dish can perform goal-directed tasks, such as learning to play a game of Pong.
Source: Cortical Labs.
A Melbourne-led team has for the first time shown that 800,000 brain cells living in a dish can perform goal-directed tasks – in this case the simple tennis-like computer game, Pong.
UW Medicine researchers have found that algorithms are as good as trained human evaluators at identifying red-flag language in text messages from people with serious mental illness. This opens a promising area of study that could help with psychiatry training and scarcity of care.
The findings were published in late September in the journal Psychiatric Services.
Text messages are increasingly part of mental health care and evaluation, but these remote psychiatric interventions can lack the emotional reference points that therapists use to navigate in-person conversations with patients.
The brain’s ability to adapt and rewire itself throughout life continues to surprise neuroscientists. Researchers have found a way to restore sight in adult mice with a form of congenital blindness, in spite of the rodents’ relative maturity.
The mice were modeling a rare human disorder of the eye’s retina, called leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), which often causes blindness or severe visual impairment at birth.
This inherited condition seems to be caused by a mutation in any one of dozens of genes associated with the retina and its light-sensing abilities.
