Rat's Brain Powers Robot

Rat's Brain Powers Robot

Techtree News Staff, Aug 14, 2008 0953 hrs IST

Scientists have interfaced a biological brain with a machine; hoping to learn more on how the brain works

New Scientist reports on a cool, if somewhat creepy development in robotics -- scientists have used bits from a rat's brain to control a robot. The 'why' behind such a Frankenstein is to learn more about how a brain works: by studying the rat brain's reponses to controlled stimulus, the scientists hope to learn more about the internal workings of a brain, which will go a long way to understand the nature of human brain disorders such as Alzheimer's.

Now for the 'how' -- a rat's neural cortex, the stuff that will eventually form the brain, is removed from the fetus and constituent neurons are seperated from each other. This neuron soup, if you will, is then applied to a bank of electrodes and is fed via a neutrient-rich medium. With time, the neurons reach out and reconnect with each other, forming a mesh of rudimentary brain tissue. Pretty soon, the axons and dendrites are firing and the neurons are chemically talking to each other. This entire setup is kept in a box, about the size of a microwave. The box then wirelessly communicates with a mechanical robot via Bluetooth.



The idea is: if they can get this brain-robot to respond to stimulus, and respond in a controllable manner, then the scientists would change the brain matter -- chemically, electically, or biologically, to find out how the controlled responses change. This feedback mechanism, the scientists hope, would help shed light on how a brain functions. An example of a stimulus could be a wall obstruction that the mechanical robot would need to evade. The presence of this wall would then act as a stimulus to the rat brain tissues, which would fire off in a repeatable manner -- their response to the stimulus. The robot would in turn be fed electrical signals based on the fixed brain-reponse; electrical signals then used to steer the robot left or right to avoid the wall.

You can read more about this rat-machine complex here

Source: New Scientist via Slashdot



USER COMMENTS

Oh great.....now I have to fear rat brain-powered robots taking over the world...

by Anish Shrop, Concord, CT, on Aug 29, 2008 03:15 AM, Report abuse   Reply

Should I say poor rat or poor robot ??? ... wait till PETA activists hear about this..

by MaxAxe, Noida, on Aug 14, 2008 03:20 PM, Report abuse   Reply

VIEW ALL LATEST

Gaming On The Move: Big Business

News > Gaming , November 20, 2008 1820 hrs IST

Set to breach 10-billion mark by 2013, says Juniper Research ...

Nintendo Adds 4 Games To Wii Shop Channel

News > Gaming , November 20, 2008 1816 hrs IST

Two each for the WiiWare and the Virtual console ...

Stream Multimedia Content On iPhone In Real-Time

News > Software , November 20, 2008 1737 hrs IST

Watch live TV, read an e-book on the go ...

Nokia Readies TD-SCDMA Smartphone For China

News > Internet , November 20, 2008 1718 hrs IST

China Mobile to launch the 3G handset by 2009-end ...

LG Prada II Gets A Companion - Prada Link

News > Consumer Electronics , November 20, 2008 1706 hrs IST

Read text messages on a watch ...

 

USER REVIEWS

MOST POPULAR NEWS

Hide
News

Could A DVR Save Your Marriage?

News | Consumer Electronics | 04 Sep 2008

...Or should you stick to your shrink?

News

Firefox Counters Chrome's Speed Test

News | Internet | 04 Sep 2008

According to Mozilla's SunSpider test, Firefox 3.1 is 28% faster than Chrome on ...

News

Nokia N96 for Rs. 40,000?

News | Telecom | 04 Sep 2008

False alarm everyone... We have learnt from Nokia that the N96 will be priced be...

MOST POPULAR REVIEWS

Hide

MOST POPULAR GAMES

Hide

MOST POPULAR DOWNLOADS

Hide
Downloads

Forbidden.exe

Downloads | Games | 02 Sep 2008

Downloads

md5deep

Downloads | System Tools | 04 Sep 2008

Downloads

RivaTuner

Downloads | System Tools | 03 Sep 2008

Close