China: Lab-Grown Human Brain Tissue Used to Control Robot

July 3rd, 2024

I like how it sits in a dish of nutrient agar!

I know I’ve seen something like this in multiple animes decades ago, but I don’t remember which ones.

Update: Found a Few…

Robotech:

The Invid Brain, also known as a Living Computer, was an advanced organic based supercomputer created by the Invid to direct the operations of their Hives as well as their military forces.

Ghost in the Shell:

Cyberization is the process whereby a normal brain is physically integrated with electronic components to produce an augmented organ referred to as a cyberbrain (??, denn? lit. “electricity brain”).

Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Beyond the purely mechanical components, the Magi also have some biological components resembling brains from which the Magi can be directly accessed. To do this, special needles need to be pierced into specific sections of the tissue allowing for the Magi to be reprogrammed.

Via: Independent:

Scientists in China have built a robot capable of performing critical tasks using an artificial brain grown from human stem cells.

The brain-on-chip was able to learn basic tasks, such as moving its limbs, avoiding obstacles and grasping objects, according to the researchers, while exhibiting some intelligence functions of a biological brain.

A team from Tianjin University and the Southern University of Science and Technology fitted the lab-grown brain with a brain-computer interface that allowed it to communicate with the outside world.

“The brain-computer interface on a chip is a technology that uses an in vitro cultured ‘brain’ – such as brain organoids – coupled with an electrode chip to achieve information interaction with the outside world through encoding and decoding and stimulation-feedback,” said Ming Dong, an executive director at the Haihe Laboratory for Brain-Computer Interaction and Human-Computer Integration at Tianjin University.

In order to function, the brain organoids have similar needs to a human brain, including fluid, nutrient lines, temperature control and protective casing.

The researchers claimed the emerging field of brain-on-chip technology would have a “revolutionary impact” by helping develop hybrid intelligence.

One Response to “China: Lab-Grown Human Brain Tissue Used to Control Robot”

  1. Snowman says:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5lGD0lVmjQ

    The Brain from Planet Argus
    1957 sci-fi

    Those 1950’s sci-fi movies were really scary. What looks like stilted acting now looked normal and natural then.

    Was Hollywood’s sudden interest in sci-fi the first major step in govt’s ongoing campaign to interest the public in possibly-hostile alien life and thereby justify US investment in space exploration and ever-more-powerful weaponry?

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