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"Real brains need connections to the outside world to mature properly. In 2017, Dr. Quadrato and her colleagues grew a brain organoid that included cells from the retina, making it sensitive to light.
Dr. Muotri and his colleagues are testing out different ways to stimulate brain organoids in order to make them develop more complex neural networks. In one experiment, they’ve linked organoids to a small spider-shaped robot. A computer translates an organoid’s electrical activity into instructions for moving the robot’s legs.
As the robot moves, it uses sensors to detect when it gets close to a wall. The computer relays those signals back to the organoid in the form of electrical pulses.
Dr. Muotri can’t say yet whether these experiments will affect how brain organoids develop. The efforts may fail — or they may produce increasingly sophisticated brain mimics that we don’t fully understand."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/science/organoids-brain-alysson-muotri.html
"Real brains need connections to the outside world to mature properly. In 2017, Dr. Quadrato and her colleagues grew a brain organoid that included cells from the retina, making it sensitive to light.
Dr. Muotri and his colleagues are testing out different ways to stimulate brain organoids in order to make them develop more complex neural networks. In one experiment, they’ve linked organoids to a small spider-shaped robot. A computer translates an organoid’s electrical activity into instructions for moving the robot’s legs.
As the robot moves, it uses sensors to detect when it gets close to a wall. The computer relays those signals back to the organoid in the form of electrical pulses.
Dr. Muotri can’t say yet whether these experiments will affect how brain organoids develop. The efforts may fail — or they may produce increasingly sophisticated brain mimics that we don’t fully understand."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/science/organoids-brain-alysson-muotri.html