Robot Controlled By Rat Brain

kkleiner writes "Kevin Warwick, once a cyborg and still a researcher in cybernetics at the University of Reading, has been working on creating biological neural networks that can control machines. He and his team have taken the brain cells from rats, cultured them, and used them as the guidance control circuit for simple wheeled robots. Electrical impulses from the bot enter the batch of neurons, and responses from the cells are turned into commands for the device. The cells can form new connections, making the system a true learning machine."

Comments

I for one would like to take this opportunity...

[JeffSpudrinski]

to greet our new rat overlords.

Misleading title should say "... Rat Brain Cells"

[chemicaldave]

Brain cells, and an entire brain (especially a mammal's) are two separate beasts.

Sentient cells?

[Twinbee]

What doesn't seem too clear after listening to the videos is why the rat's cells wouldn't want to crash the robot it's controlling, into the wall. Did the scientists program that in (perhaps wall crashes give the cells some kind of negative electrical stimulation), or did the cells have a mind of its own on that front?

The difference is subtle because it means we have either a 'mere' replacement for computer chips, or potentially much more - a sentient clump of cells which want the 'best' for the robot it's controlling.

Re:Sentient cells?

[golden age villain]

I was wondering the same and honestly it seems fishy to me. There is no such thing as a negative electrical stimulation for neurons. Granted there is inhibition by GABA and some other neuromodulators. So unless they drop something on the tissue to induce some sort of learning, I simply don't see why any coherent behavior would emerge since there is no "motivation" to behave in one way rather than the other. From the wall-avoidance behavior video, my guess is that the sensors continuously feed the network until they detect a surface and then stop. In that case, the behavior would be hard-coded in the sensors and not in the network.

Re:Sentient cells?

[EdZ]

It's a SLNN (Self-Learning Neural Network) with actual neurons rather than virtual ones. You don't 'program' the cells, you provide inputs and 'reward' the correct output to those inputs, and let the neurons iteratively learn the correct weights in between.

Re:I for one would like to take this opportunity..

[mcgrew]

Here's a rat cyborg who used to be our overlord. As to cyborgs, Warwick was never a cyborg. Implanting a chip that does nothing whatever doesn't make you a cyborg, but a pacemaker does. To be a cyborg you have to have a device implanted in your body that aids in the body's function; a pacemaker, an artificial hip or knee, a cochlear implant, an accomodating IOL, etc. Implanting a chip that does nothing is just stupid.

Your grandma's probably a real cyborg.