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Hybrid Robot Uses Rat Brain
CowboyRobot writes "After two recent stories of artificial brains used to control rats and one about MIT doing the reverse, NYTimes now has a piece on similar work done at Georgia Tech From the article:
"...the layer of rat neurons is grown over an array of electrodes that pick up the neurons' electrical activity. A computer analyzes the activity of the several thousand brain cells in real time to detect spikes produced by neurons firing near an electrode." But this time you can buy one for $3,000."
Wired to the Brain of a Rat, a Robot Takes On the World
By ANNE EISENBERG
The nerve center of a conventional robot is a microprocessor of silicon and metal. But for a robot under development at Georgia Tech, commands are relayed by 2,000 or so cells from a rat's brain.
A group led by a university researcher has created a part mechanical, part biological robot that operates on the basis of the neural activity of rat brain cells grown in a dish. The neural signals are analyzed by a computer that looks for patterns emitted by the brain cells and then translates those patterns into robotic movement. If the neurons fire a certain way, for example, the robot's right wheel rotates once.
The leader of the group, Steve M. Potter, a professor in the Laboratory for Neuroengineering at Georgia Tech, calls his creation a Hybrot, short for hybrid robot.
"It's very much a symbiosis," he said, "a digital computer and a living neural network working together."
Dr. Potter has been building the system of hardware, software, incubators and rat neurons that constitute the Hybrot since 1993, when he was a postdoctoral student at the California Institute of Technology. He and his group have not only introduced the neurons to the world outside their dish; the team has also closely monitored minute changes that take place in the shape and connections of the neurons as they are stimulated, using techniques like time-lapse photography and laser imaging.
Dr. Potter hopes that close observation of how brain cells behave as they are exposed to a world of sensation will help researchers understand the way small groups of neurons go about learning. "If the network begins to get better at a job," he said, "we will watch what changed within the network to allow it to do that."
Dr. Jonathan Wolpaw, laboratory chief and professor of neuroscience at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health and the State University of New York at Albany, said that Dr. Potter's research could yield a simple system for exploring the capacity of neurons and circuits to change based on incoming activity.
"These changes could be analogues of what happens in learning," Dr. Wolpaw said. "You are dealing with neurons, the same tissue as in a brain," although in a different setting and with different circuitry. "Some things presumably are in common, for example, the neuron's capacity for plasticity," he said.
In Dr. Potter's hybrid system, the layer of rat neurons is grown over an array of electrodes that pick up the neurons' electrical activity. A computer analyzes the activity of the several thousand brain cells in real time to detect spikes produced by neurons firing near an electrode.
A silver three-wheeled model of the robot is commercially available through the Swiss robotics maker K-Team (www.k-team.com) for about $3,000 and is about the size of a hockey puck. It trundles along at a top speed of one meter per second.
"We assign a direction of movement, say, a step forward, that is automatically triggered by a pattern of spikes," said Thomas DeMarse, a former member of Dr. Potter's group who is an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida. "Twenty of these patterns, for instance, means 20 rotations of the wheel."
As the robot moves, it functions as a sensory system, delivering feedback to the neurons through the electrodes. For example, Mr. DeMarse said, the robot has sensors for light and feeds electrical signals proportional to the light back to the electrodes. "We return information to the dish on the intensity of light as the robot gets closer and the light gets brighter."
The researchers monitor the activity of the neurons for new signals and new connections. Dr. Potter said that the feedback mechanism was crucial to the functioning of the neural network. In traditional, isolated cultured networks, he said, in which neurons are not connected to a body, the activity patterns of the neurons are la
You can buy a copy of the robot base they are using, but it doesn't include the cybernetic rat brain.
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If you could create a multi-laminar structure, this setup might be ideal for an artificial retina. Currently, the bionic retinas being used are nowhere near as sensitive as they need to be to create any useful phototransduction, even if the neural retinal substrate underneath remained intact (which it does not). A multilaminar device could sandwich photosensitive elements combined with neural substrates that would function as the neural interface to the output of the retina, the remaining ganglion cells.
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Who knew they were transplanting rat brains into aibo robot dogs!
Back in the day, we used to talk about robots. But for us, it was always a frightening thing. Then saturday night live did a commercial about robots stealing our medicine! Believe you me, THAT had me scared for a while! I know it was satire, but it's not hard to imagine robots living off the powerful medicines we old people use!
Not that this isn't cool and all, but:
I don't want to be around when this thing becomes aware enough to take retribution for countless generations of lab rat torture! Someone will stumble into the lab and find a scientist's brain wired into a speak-n-spell, with a rat-bot-shaped hole in the wall and a trail of cheese crumbs...
"Here's another one: 'More brains, and bring back Hawaiian Fridays'"
5 -03&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-0
I will wait until i can purchase a ratbrain pci card before I jump on the bandwagon. Imagine the image recognition possibilites :)
Move Zig!
How do they keep the nerve cells alive? Are they actually fed, oxygenated, and protected from infection?
What the hell do these people target rats that much ? don't mice do the trick too ?
Rats have much larger brains and visual pathways than do mice, so surgery and implants of bionic and biological devices is spatially easier. The advantage that mice have right now is the genetic resources and databases that currently are not available to the same extent as for rats.
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They are only using female rats for this experiment. If they use male rats the report would probably look something like
....
Monday morning
Robot tried too shag other robots
Monday afternoon
Robot refused to move from candy vending machine
Monday evening
Robot tried too shag other robots
Tuesday morning
Robot tried too shag other robots
As a scientist, I regret that you are not my animal.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
At least we'll never run out of politicians now. :-)
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Since when does having a better chance at being selected for a science experiment that will probably kill you count as an "advantage?"
I have seen this guy give a talk every year for 5 years. He always says the same thing "we are close to observing something here." The truth is that no one has a clue whether he will ever see anything in these cultures that is meaningful. These are dissociated cells that are living in a culture dish. The laminar structure that the hippocampus has is destroyed in this process. It would be like throwing a bunch of wires together and hoping to come up with a few logic gates. It is all hype right now. The neurons are not "controlling" the robot at all - the neurons have yet to show any organized activity. Even if they did - would you know what it meant??? I would be very surprised if this ever worked in its current incarnation...
They invade our kitchens, and we fall back. They steal entire cheeses, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, and no farther. And I will make the mice-borg pay for what they have done!
Repeal the DMCA!