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
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 ...
MOST REQUESTED REVIEWS
MOST POPULAR NEWS
|
Could A DVR Save Your Marriage?News | Consumer Electronics | 04 Sep 2008 ...Or should you stick to your shrink? |
|
Firefox Counters Chrome's Speed TestAccording to Mozilla's SunSpider test, Firefox 3.1 is 28% faster than Chrome on ... |
|
Nokia N96 for Rs. 40,000?False alarm everyone... We have learnt from Nokia that the N96 will be priced be... |
MOST POPULAR REVIEWS
MOST POPULAR GAMES
MOST POPULAR DOWNLOADS
|
Forbidden.exe |
|
md5deepDownloads | System Tools | 04 Sep 2008 |
|
RivaTunerDownloads | System Tools | 03 Sep 2008 |
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