Boffins grow human brain cells to play Pong
Pong was one of the first commercial computer games. Loosely based on two-dimensional table tennis, players are asked to bat a square pixel “ball” from one side of the screen to another. The Atari game was first released in 1972.
The experimenters grew human brain cells grown from stem cells, as well as mouse embryos, to a collection of 800,000 individual cells. Electrical connectors fed data describing which side the pong ball was on and how far it was from the paddle. The cells produced electrical activity of their own, learning to play the game based on feedback, per the paper.he hoped the research could help test treatments for neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's.
"When people look at tissues in a dish, at the moment they are seeing if there is activity or no activity. But the purpose of brain cells is to process information in real time," he said."Tapping into their true function unlocks so many more research areas that can be explored in a comprehensive way."
Kagan next plans to get the dish-based puddle of neurons drunk on booze to find out if it might work as an experimental stand-in, he told the BBC. During the same interview, he said he could not find a better term than “sentient” to describe the device, leadingShare
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