Video Shows Human Brain Cells in Dish Teaching Themselves to Play a Videogame

For the first time, scientists were able to show that hundreds of thousands of brain cells can be taught how to play a game.

The chief scientific officer at Cortical Labs said in a press release that they have shown we can interact with living biological neurons in a way that makes them modify their activity.

We don't know a lot about how the human brain works. The deepest inner workings of the human mind can be studied through this new experiment.

Animal testing and artificial intelligence models are used to study the brain. If the researchers behind the new study are correct, this advancement could eliminate the need for either.

According to the statement, models of the brain have been developed in the past. Our current understanding of information technology is what's behind that.

We don't know how the brain works.

The researchers used both mouse and human cells for their study. The press release states that the cells were grown on top of a microelectrode array which stimulated them and read their activity

It was on from there. That's right, literally. The experiment shows the brain cells throwing the ball back and forth.

The scientists used the electrodes on either side of the array to tell DishBrain the location of the pong ball.

The cells were taught how to become the paddle by receiving electricity.

The cells act in a virtual environment for the first time. We built a closed-loop environment that can read what's happening in the cells and then change the cells in an interactive way so they can actually alter each other.

"This new ability to teach cell cultures to perform a task in which they exhibit sentience, by controlling the paddle to return the ball via sensor, opens up new discovery possibilities," said Adeel Razi, the director of the Computational & Systems Neuroscience Laboratory.

It's still in its infancy, but it may be on its way to laying the groundwork for a new field of study.

The next task on the list is to play a game of pong.

"We're trying to create a dose-response curve with alcohol, so that we can see if they play the game poorly, just as when people drink," he said.

The scientists transplant human brain cells into living rats.