It’s Alive (ish)

August 2, 2006 | Source: Wired News

Georgia Institute of Technology, scientists have developed “neurally controlled animats” — a few thousand rat neurons grown atop a grid of electrodes and connected to a robot body or computer-simulated virtual environment.

They have programmed a robot to associate neural firing patterns with actions such as movement of a cursor on a screen, creating an interactive system between a culture of cells placed on a culture dish and the external physical world.

It’s hoped that the research will eventually lead to better neural prosthetics, understanding of neural pathologies and even artificial intelligence.