Developed Artificial Brain Cells That Can Play Games

Technological advances now allow what we see in science fiction works in many different fields to become real. Now, a study published in the academic journal Neuron reveals that scientists at an Australian-based company have developed artificial brain cells.

According to the BBC’s report, researchers at the company called Cortical Labs, brain cells in a lab setting developed. Moreover, it was reported that these cells have a very interesting ability. This ‘mini-brain’, according to experts, can play games.

Artificial brain cells learned to play the popular 1970s game Pong

Scientists have discovered that 800,000 artificial brain cells, called ‘mini-brains’, can sense and respond to their environment, and that they are similar to tennis that debuted in the 1970s. that you can play the game of pong stated. One of the researchers, Dr. Brett Kagan also claimed to have succeeded in creating a ‘sensitive’ brain for the first time in the laboratory. Other experts, on the other hand, described the study as ‘exciting’ and said that it is a bit too much to define ‘sensitive’ for now.

In his statements about Kagan’s work, “We couldn’t find a better term to describe the device. It can receive information from an external source, process it, and can respond in real time” used the phrases. Mini-brains were first 2013 It was reported that it was produced to study microcephaly, the genetic disease in which the brain is small, and has been used in brain development research since then. The new study also enabled cells to communicate with an external environment for the first time, in this case a video game.

For the experiment, the researchers collected mouse cells from embryonic brains and some human brain cells derived from stem cells. The cells show which side the ball is on in Pong and how far it is from the thing that acts as the paddle. electrodes connected to the game. One of the oldest arcade games, Pong is a table tennis game that requires the ball to be held within the playing field.

After this, it was observed that the cells produced their own electrical activity. The feedback from the electrodes made the cells act like racquets and taught them how to bounce the ball back. Experts, your mini-brain to play in five minutes He said he learned. In addition, they often miss the ball; But the success rate is higher than random chance was also added. The researchers also noted that these unconscious cells cannot play the game the way a human does.

Could be used to test treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s

Dr. Kagan, exciting technology Alzheimer’s He says it could be used to test treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Emphasizing the need for more studies, the researcher said that he plans to test the effects of alcohol on the mini-brain’s ability to play Pong later on. Thus, it will be seen whether the human brain responds in a similar way. This will reveal how effective the system is for use in experiments.