August 17, 2008
Robot With A Biological Brain
A research team at the University of Reading has developed a robot which is controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured neurons. This cutting edge research is the first step to examine how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data. The key aim is that eventually this will lead to a better understanding of development and of diseases and disorders which affect the brain such as Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, stoke and brain injury.
The robot’s biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi electrode array (MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot. Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes. In response, the brain's output is used to drive the wheels of the robot, left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects. The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, its sole means of control is from its own brain.
Other research teams have tried to control robots with ‘brains,’ but there was always a computer in the loop. This new project is the first one to examine ‘how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data.’ As life expectancy is increasing in most countries, this new research could provide insights into how the brain works and help aging people.
According to the project description, the neural cultures will be cultured locally in the University of Readings’ new Electrophysiological research laboratory allowing real-time access to the recording and stimulation hardware via an intranet link-up. In order to test the abilities of such cultured neural networks we propose using them to control some of our existing mobile robots. This is to be achieved by applying a number of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence techniques in order to correctly translate robot sensor inputs into suitable patterns of stimulation and interpret the resulting patterns of neural activity as motor actions. In order to measure the amount of computation the cultured “brain” is performing we will use a surrogate (an artificial neural network that redistributes the input signal to the output) in place of the the cultured “brain”. Both the cultured “brain” and the surrogate will be applied to various behavioural tasks (such as obstacle avoidance and wall following) the difference in performance between the cultured “brain” and the surrogate will give us some measure of the processing capabilities of cultured neural networks when used in this way.”
Source: University of Reading Press Release
Video from University of Reading Faculty
This work was presented at European Robotics Symposium 2008
Additional reading on this topic
Connecting Neurons to a Mobile Robot: An In Vitro Bidirectional Neural Interface