Dish me up a brain
 

from cnn.com

'Brain' in a dish flies flight simulator

(CNN) -- A Florida scientist has developed a "brain" in a glass dish that is capable of flying a virtual fighter plane and could enhance medical understanding of neural disorders such as epilepsy.

The "living computer" was grown from 25,000 neurons extracted from a rat's brain and arranged over a grid of 60 electrodes in a Petri dish.

The brain cells then started to reconnect themselves, forming microscopic interconnections, said Thomas DeMarse, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida.

"It's essentially a dish with 60 electrodes arranged in a dish at the bottom," explained DeMarse, who designed the study.

"Over that we put the living cortical neurons from rats, which rapidly begin to reconnect themselves, forming a living neural network -- a brain."

Although such living networks could one day be used to fly unmanned aircraft, DeMarse said the study was of more immediate relevance as an experimental aid to understanding how the human brain performs and learns computational tasks at a cellular level.

"We're interested in studying how brains compute," said DeMarse.

"If you think about your brain, and learning and the memory process, I can ask you questions about when you were five-years-old and you can retrieve information. That's a tremendous capacity for memory. In fact, you perform fairly simple tasks that you would think a computer would easily be able to accomplish, but in fact it can't."

Although computers can perform certain tasks extremely quickly, they lack the flexibility and adaptability of the human brain and perform particularly poorly at pattern recognition tasks.

"If we extract the rules of how these neural networks are doing computations like pattern recognition we can apply that to create novel computing systems," said DeMarse.

"There's a lot of data out there that will tell you that the computation that's going on here isn't based on just one neuron. The computational property is actually an emergent property of hundreds of thousands of neurons cooperating to produce the amazing processing power of the brain."

As well as enhancing scientific knowledge of how the brain works, the neurons may provide clues to brain dysfunction. For example, an epileptic seizure is triggered when all the neurons in the brain fire simultaneously -- a pattern commonly replicated by a neural network in a dish.

When linked up to an F-22 jet flight simulator, the brain and the simulator established a two-way connection similar to how neurons receive and interpret signals from each other to control our bodies.

Gradually the brain learnt to control the flight of the plane based on the information it received about flight conditions.

However, the brain still falls a long way short of the complexity of the human brain, which has billions of neurons, and Steven Potter, a biomedical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said a brain in a dish flying a real plane was still a long way off.

"A lot of people have been interested in what changes in the brains of animals and people when they are learning things," said Potter, DeMarse's former supervisor.

"We're interested in getting down into the network and cellular mechanisms, which is hard to do in living animals. And the engineering goal would be to get ideas from this system about how brains compute and process information."

..................

For me personally, this kind of thing is better than religion. The only sort of immortality I'd be interested in at all is of the cybernetic variety. I'd chuck my body for a neural net in a nanosecond.

In many ways, this is the most fascinating story I have encountered in a very long time.

WOW! The brain actually connected with the fight simulator and adapted to the controls. That's freakin crazy. I've always wondered how humans' brains worked and this proves that some of it is a sort of unconscious cooperation exerted by neurons. I love this stuff.

-Lasereth

Boy those PETA people are gonna be all over this.

Asta!!

Wonder how long it will be before they're flying fighters and fighting in combat? UAVs indeed.

But can they do flybys?

"Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full."

The Brain in a Dish - containing 25K neurons...

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/TECH/11/....braindish.jpg

For those who find it too hard to believe...here's the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/02/b...ish/index.html

wow.. that's insane..

That's some wierd shit right there.

Now, this of any story I've read for a long time, has the most potential to turn into something truly spectacular.

Scientific study for bettering human life is okay with me, but this is very disturbing on another level. A machine with a brain, such as the unmanned aircraft, seems a bit like the start of something dangerous. If the brain can fly the aircraft, it can probably do a lot of other thinking and planning. In all living creatures and these would be a type of living creature, there is always a self preservation instinct and I don't think we could really control it. Hope the wrong scientist doesn’t start trying to make machines with living brains. Man vs. Machine

Sounds like step one of the terminator movies!

avhg1,
I can't imagine a more irresponsible, deadly, crazed, self-destructive, and destructive of others entity with a brain than homo sapiens. We've been putting up with the results of that calamity since the last ice age. Machines with brains could wreak no greater havoc than we ourselves have wreaked. IMO, as long as we stay away from programming emotions into these neural nets, I think we'll be the better for their existence.

Humans have a tendency to want to control everything in our environment. In our striving to achieve this, we tend jump without understanding the full ramifications of our actions. I am more suggesting that this opens potential for advances that we are not full ready for. The fact that the brain adapted to learn the simulator is what scares me. What other adaptations would take place that we might not anticipate?

How do you know that it is a neutral net? If they have no emotions is this much better? A machine with extremely complex and adaptive logic capable of mass destruction with no emotion or morality to stop it, doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Emotion and morality are the only things that have kept the human race from wiping itself out.

Of course, we disagree in our analysis of what is dangerous about homo sapiens and what has kept us from wiping ourselves out. In any event, there is a certain inevitability to scientific movement. This work will continue to be executed. It will evolve predictably. And for myself, I would be the first in line to trade my corporeal existence for this alternative.

This is so cool. I guess we've been seeing it as a potential for science in many sci-fi scenerios for a long time. I don't imagine we really have anything to fear from this. This is simply a "Master" computer. Our brains without our emotions are essentially a perfect computer. It is amazing what the human brain can do. We would never be able to replicate the computation power of the human brain in a simple computer. The mass would simply be to great were it possible. The human body is a wonder, even the smallest part of it grown in a petri dish is amazing. What I wouldn't give to be working with those scientists just for one day to see what they learn and do.

I may be missing something here... but does this seem like a giant leap towards creating A.I. to anyone else?

If the "brain in a dish" can learn to fly a jet, which isn't really a simple task, I would imagine thinking and learning for itself is not out of the realm of possibility.

What's interesting, though, is how A.I - providing this is a step towards it - may incorporate biological tissues into it. I had always imagined it as some incredibly complex code...

I am eager to see where this will lead.

Great link Art, and thanks again!

I picture an empty jet flying through the sky, with only a little brain in a jar hooked up to the controls. A battalion of robot "soldiers" in battle, with their brains secured in bulletproof casing. Skyscrapers built entirely by brains! A brain in a sexy box for President! Hehehe.

Agree 100%.
The ramifications here are boundless aren't they...
Great read!

Anyone want to pursue the notion that I find it preferable to exist as one of these little conglomerations rather than as a corporeal body?

When I mentioned it to sus last night, she was surprised I'd be willing to chuck my body and physical sensations. For me, it's all about my mind. I could live forever without a thought of what I left behind when I eschewed the flesh.

To be honest, I would find living forever with my mind still intact quite agreeable as well. I suppose that is why it wouldn't really strike me as too strange for me to consider, but if you would like to elaborate, please do.

I am curious as to whether your reasons are similar to my own...

Well of course, the first thing one thinks of - the first things sus mentioned - are physical pleasures. I can't think about them without thinking about physical pain at the same time.

And when I do, I'd chuck my body in a flash.

One thing interesting about this meditation is how little I seem to care about sex when it is put in the context of a discussion of this sort.

I agree... when I read your post, I considered what I would miss most about my physical body... and sex wasn't really all that high on the list.

However, whatever I would be missing would be more than made up for with the amount of knowledge I could obtain over the next... uh.. forever? Well, either that, or until my petri dish is smashed by hyper-intelligent mice trying to take over the world...

Yes. But think of the implications of this.
Most folks - especially here, I'd guess - would put physical pleasure and especially sex very near the top of the motivations for living scale. Yet, in this context, it seems to lose its impact. But that's probably a minority view. Actually I don't know. That's why I'm curious...

Art, if you're interested... Curiosity got the better of me, I started a poll here, just to see if we are indeed the minority...

Link

It shows that the machinery of the mind is robust enough to flex far more than many people would first imagine. However, I'd suggest that the human experience is reliant on the body and the experiences and sensations of the body. Without those, the mind wouldn't be able to develop, or (possibly) function as we know it. What I'm saying is that there needs to be a rich soup of bodily sensation upon which the mind can feed.

Yes, the mind needs sensory hookups. Input devices would be simple enough - more simple than the neural net issues.

We'd better all hope that this isn't related.

Physical pain is what reminds you that you are still alive. It makes you stronger. It's more than just physical pleasure why someone would want to go on living. If you have a mind, you have memories, you can even remember physical pain without it happening to you again. You know you can because if you've ever had a dream where you are say bitten by ants or had a rock thrown at you, you can feel it. Sometimes to the degree that you actually wake up. Thinking about spending the rest of your life absorbing knowledge into your little petry dish brain is pretty pointless. The best part about knowledge is sharing it. Interaction would have to take place...with interaction comes emotions. But you want to give up all of that. So you'd be a computer no one ever uses? Well you'd probably get used, and governed, against your will for the most part. Could very well become a slave. I'll take my body thank you.

Asta!!

Very very cool indeed. The only downside I can think of is all the people complaining of playing the role of god...but in the name of science they should stfu

What an interesting article! To actually have knowledge that the brain cells rejoined, and started to be able to make sense of piloting a plane is certainly promising for the future.

Terminator stuff? Hardly. Art's right when he said that no one has been more destructive to themselves than homo sapiens. Maybe the idea of a "brain in a jar" concept would be able to comprehend our situation, and come up with solutions to todays problems???

Anything is possible. I think it would be interesting to ditch the mortal flesh to become a "brain in a jar". Do you suppose it would be possible to keep your thoughts and memories and apply them???

I think the outcome of these developments would really depend on how they are applied. Humans will be responsible for the fallout from the wrong use of technology. Homo sapiens will be the destructors by creating this as a weapon, same as we would be for developing biological weapons. I could become just another type of weapon that we loss control of because of our superiority complex.

I don't see how you could say that this couldn't be the start to Terminator stuff. Machines that learn and adapt complex thought patterns without any human input or support is completely the basis for Terminator and Matrix. At what point do we develop this technology to the point that it is fully self supported?

Don't get me wrong. It is very interesting and could be extremely useful as long as it is applied correctly.