Scientists from the Australian laboratory Cortical Labs created a chip with human neurons, He said this Friday to NewScientist the head of the project, Brett Kagan.
The system, dubbed ‘DishBrain’, consists of a Petri dish with brain cells grown on top of a matrix of microelectrodes capable of stimulating them and detecting the signals.
“Through stimulation and electrophysiological recording, cultures were inserted into a simulated game world, imitating the arcade game ‘Pong'”, scientists describe in a study about it, which was uploaded to the BioRxiv prepress server in early December and has not yet been peer-reviewed.
“We often refer to them as those who they live in the matrix. When they are in the game, they think they are paddle tennis“, agrega Kagan.
The operation of this “cyborg brain”, as the researcher calls it, differs from the usual artificial intelligence (AI). While DishBrain learned to play ‘Pong’ in solo five minutes, it took the AI an hour and a half to do it. However, once they both understood the mechanics of the game, DishBrain showed worse results than the AI and lost the games in which it faced it.
As the scientists established, the model works with cells both humans and rodents. However, between the two patterns there is a difference. “Human Cortical Cells they always exceeded to mouse cortical cells with nuances in the characteristics of the game “, indicate the researchers, highlighting that this is the first evidence that human neurons are in themselves superior to those of rodents.
“Using this DishBrain system, we have shown that a single layer of cortical neurons ‘in vitro’ can self-organize and display behavior smart and sensitive when incarnated in a simulated game world, “conclude the scientists.
“Future work with this system may investigate the use of other types of neuronal cells and / or biological structures. more complex“, are waiting.
