Written by Lan 2022 Cohort
A year ago, scientists successfully trained brain cells in a Petri dish to play the world’s first arcade game, “Pong!”. Through external electrical stimulation, these harvested brain cells were able to respond to the position of the ball with guidance, thus completing the essential 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 the human brain and the mouse brain, respectively. In the comparative experiment at that time, the scientists found that human brain cells generally perform better than mouse brain cells.
Now that human-derived cell populations can be combined with mouse cells, a researcher from “Cortical labs” claims in an interview that he has created the first “sentient” experimental brain tissue in a petri dish. 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 is still able to learn a skill by understanding and following human rules. Of course, playing the game is not the ultimate goal; the significance of this research is that scientists may be able to find new methods used to treat mental illnesses 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 perform well in the game “Pong!” under the influence of alcohol. If it exhibited characteristics similar to the human brain, it would be a better surrogate 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 proceeds, Kagan said the team works with bioethicists to ensure they don’t accidentally create a conscious brain and come with another set of ethical issues.